Make Word documents fit the page

We have a four-page document that, for presentation reasons, we’d like to print out onto just three sheets. We could do this by tweaking the layout, removing line breaks and reducing the word count – but that all requires work. Instead, we’re going to use a feature that’s built in to Word to do the job automatically, in the blink of an eye. To do this in Word 2003, first open the File menu and choose Print Preview.

Click the Shrink to Fit button in the Print Preview toolbar and Word will attempt to reduce the length of the document by one page. It does this by reducing font sizes and line spacing so, while it is quick and easy to make documents fit, the printed words will be a little smaller than perhaps you intended. Incidentally, it’s possible to click the Shrink to Fit button multiple times and Word will attempt to shrink the document by a page each time. On short documents, this will be unlikely to work more than once but on long manuscripts, the page count can be significantly reduced using this method.

To achieve the same in Word 2007, click the Office button then choose Print followed by Print Preview, then Preview and then click the Shrink One Page button. In Word 2010, this button has been removed from the Print Preview but can be restored and added to the Quick Access Toolbar. To do this, click File followed by Options then Quick Access Toolbar. Now choose Print Preview Tab from the ‘Choose commands from’ dropdown menu, scroll down the list of commands below to find Shrink One Page, click to select it then click Add. Click OK and the option will now appear in the Quick Access Toolbar. In all cases, the Undo command (Ctrl and Z) will restore the document to its previous length.