Custom page size: Word won’t cooperate

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I am trying to set up a Custom Page Size for use with tent cards to be printed for birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The base size is 7 inches wide by 10 inch high (17.8cm x 25.4 cm) with 0.25 inch margins (0.64cm). This will fold to a card that is about 7 inches by 5 inches. When I go into the page size specification and select Page Layout > Size, then scroll down to “More Paper Sizes” and when the Dialog box comes up, I scroll the Page Size selector to “Custom Size”and enter the width and height as 17.8 cm and 25.4 cm. I also set the default margins to 0.64 cm, Gutter at 0 cm and header and footer at 0 cm from the edge, all in Portrait mode. I allow it to default to “Whole document” and then click on OK. I also set a Page Border to use in aligning the components for the card, it will be removed prior to printing. When I go to verify that the custom size is in place, I find that for some reason, it has defaulted to “B5 (JIS) 18.2 cm by 25.4 cm”, which is not the “Custom” size that I specified, although the margins 0f 0.64 cm do set properly. I do not seem to be able to figure out why this is happening. I would be very grateful if someone could shed some light on what I am doing wrong, or not doing, as the case maybe. Getting this right is very important to the production of these “greeting cards” as positioning is everything. Thanks in advance for your help.

Ron_M

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Ron,

I’ve never tried to play with custom page size but I do have a work around.
When I was teaching I used to make tent cards also what I did is the following:
1. Determine how the card stock will feed into the printer, i.e. are you using a paper tray or will it be manual feed.
2. When setup for feeding will the card be aligned against the left side of the paper tray or manual feed or will it feed centered?
3. Now just set the page margins according to the answers of these two questions. For example assuming a base 11×8.5 sheet you’d set the margins as follows to get a 5X7 card feeding in portrait mode stock center feeding assuming .5″ border from the 5×7 on all sides:
Top Margin: 0.5
Left Margin:1.25
Right Margin: 1.25
Bottom Margin: 6

Adjust accordingly for left feed and/or landscape printing.

I hope this helps. :cheers:

BTW: if your printer will print with a minimum 1/4 inch margins you can use a table and set up 2 cards per page if you have 11×8.5 card stock and a good paper cutter.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Ron,

I’ve never tried to play with custom page size but I do have a work around.
When I was teaching I used to make tent cards also what I did is the following:
1. Determine how the card stock will feed into the printer, i.e. are you using a paper tray or will it be manual feed.
2. When setup for feeding will the card be aligned against the left side of the paper tray or manual feed or will it feed centered?
3. Now just set the page margins according to the answers of these two questions. For example assuming a base 11×8.5 sheet you’d set the margins as follows to get a 5X7 card feeding in portrait mode stock center feeding assuming .5″ border from the 5×7 on all sides:
Top Margin: 0.5
Left Margin:1.25
Right Margin: 1.25
Bottom Margin: 6

Adjust accordingly for left feed and/or landscape printing.

I hope this helps. :cheers:

BTW: if your printer will print with a minimum 1/4 inch margins you can use a table and set up 2 cards per page if you have 11×8.5 card stock and a good paper cutter.

RG,

1. Card stock will feed “manually” (sort of) from a front tray.
2. Alignment will be on the right side of the paper tray as viewed from the front of the printer (Canon Pixma Pro9500 Mk. II).
3. Not sure how this will help, as the base stock is 7″ wide by 10″ long – folded in half gives you a 7X5 card.

My real problem is how to stop Word from defaulting to a size that I did not ask for, nor do I want – that’s the rub so to speak. :confused:

I am beginning to suspect that I will have to create a new template and set everything within that framework, but I am not sure yet.

Ron_M

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I suspect Word’s ability to make a custom page size will depend on the printer driver in use. Try printing to pdf if you have a pdf driver and see if that changes your result.

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I suspect Word’s ability to make a custom page size will depend on the printer driver in use. Try printing to pdf if you have a pdf driver and see if that changes your result.

Charles, I am unclear how this relates to the problem, as I cannot even get to the “printing” stage – all I am trying to do is change the page size to accommodate a card stock that I have that is 7″ wide by 10″ long. I am beginning to suspect that I may have to define a new template and work from there. Any thoughts on that?

Ron_M

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Charles, I am unclear how this relates to the problem, as I cannot even get to the “printing” stage – …

Ron_M

The page size you can set depends on the printer driver. You have one set even if you haven’t printed anything.

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The page size you can set depends on the printer driver. You have one set even if you haven’t printed anything.

This is a whole new thing for me – something I wasn’t aware of. Is there a way to check this out and see if this is what is causing my problem? The reason I ask, is that this is not something I have ever run into and I have not found it mentioned in any of the books or references that I have. If this is the problem, do you have any suggestions as to how to”fix” it – not sure if it is fixable, but there must be a way to resolve this. Thanks.

Ron_M

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Ron,

Seethis article. I tried it in Word 2007 and it works.

:cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Ron,

Seethis article. I tried it in Word 2007 and it works.

:cheers:

RG, thanks for the reference, but…that is exactly what I was doing – thinking it was the right thing to do…My problem is that when I tried to apply it, for some reason or other, Word did not keep this size for my document (the custom size I specified), rather it defaulted to “B5 (JIS) 18.2 cm by 25.4 cm”, which is not the “Custom” size that I specified, although the margins 0f 0.64 cm did set properly. For some reason, and this is the frustrating part, Word will not apply the “custom” dimensions to the “electronic” page I am trying to create – it seems to be ignoring my request to change the page size to what I am specifying, rather it is substituting something else and I don’t understand why it is doing this. This problem is why I ended up here on the forum, because I must be doing something wrong, or not doing something right…makes me wonder if there is another option that I have to set. At this point, I think my only recourse is to create a new template. I just had a look at that and it doesn’t look to be a simple walk in the park either. These are the times when I long for Word 97 when things were much simpler and a lot more straight forward. Maybe I will go to Open Office – it seems to be a lot simpler than the current MS Office products.:mad:

Basically, the problem is not figuring out how to do it, I know that; the problem is making MS Word do what I want it to do – aaarrrggghhh!!!

Regards,

Ron_M

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Ron, It might be worth visiting the printer manufacturer’s site to see if a new driver is available for your printer. There might also be a user’s guide somewhere on the site to assist with what you are doing. Some printer manufacturers are very good and some not so much. Perhaps you will get lucky.

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Ron, It might be worth visiting the printer manufacturer’s site to see if a new driver is available for your printer. There might also be a user’s guide somewhere on the site to assist with what you are doing. Some printer manufacturers are very good and some not so much. Perhaps you will get lucky.

Ted, thanks for the idea. My printer, Canon Pixma Pro9500 Mk. II, has only been out on the market for a short period of time, so I doubt that the driver needs updating, but I will go to the Canon website and see what I can find. Canon, unfortunately, is, in my opinion, one of those “some not so much” that you mentioned. Nevertheless, this is definitley worth checking out and if nothing else, eliminating it as the source of the problem.

Ron_M

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I’m typing with a broken hand so please forgive me for being short.

Which version of Word are you using? It may matter.

Did you try the pdf solution I suggested? To do this you need to set your document up to print to a pdf copy. Then try to make your custom page size. If you can, then the problem is your printer driver.

If you do not have a pdf driver you can download cute pdf for free. Search Google to find.

Alternative:

Consider pretending to Word that you are printing on a regular sized sheet of paper larger than your real paper. Set the margins on that page so that the printable area will be the size of the paper or card stock that you are actually printing on. Print what you want onto a regular piece of paper to see how you have to put the paper into the printer then print on your card stock.

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……..
Alternative:

Consider pretending to Word that you are printing on a regular sized sheet of paper larger than your real paper. Set the margins on that page so that the printable area will be the size of the paper or card stock that you are actually printing on. Print what you want onto a regular piece of paper to see how you have to put the paper into the printer then print on your card stock.

Charles, sorry about the hand, hope it is not too serious. I am using Word 2010.

I have not tried the PDF aproach yet, but I need to, to eliminate the printer driver, or identify it, as the culprit. I did try a variation of your “alternative” and it seems to work. Thanks for all your help

Ron_M

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This may confuse matters more than it helps, but are you using a suite that includes Publisher?

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This may confuse matters more than it helps, but are you using a suite that includes Publisher?

No, I am not. I have the basic “Office 2010” package…Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Ron M

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No, I am not. I have the basic “Office 2010” package…Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Ron M

The ‘help population’ is going to be much larger for a Word question, but just to tip you off to it, if you have a lot of publications to do Office Publisher is dedicated to that and will let you create some excellent results. I realize that is hypothetical in your present circumstances, but some users forget that they even have it, and it might be perfect for your present project. Maybe you can download a trial for a long enough period to do the job.

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I expect you know this, and it isn’t likely to solve your present problem, but in Word you can go to File > New you will find lots of templates both installed and downloadable, and you can do a search on ‘Name and place cards’ or Greeting cards > Name and place cards, Graduation name cards, or other such things. Even if the designs are hideous, there is a good chance that they will at least be centered, and you can change or delete the design elements and fonts and substitute your own. (I confess I didn’t see a single tent-style card among those I looked at, and folded material is one thing Publisher is good at.)

I realize that you are working with a specific format, but you may be able to scale to suit. If you do get a decent template, be sure to save it!

I am still trying to think of a direct answer to the question, by the way, but it is a head-scratcher.

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This is solely down to the printer driver. It is the printer driver parameters which are interrogated by Word that determines the layout of a document and which paper stock is applicable for the printer.

However, here is a sample of my ‘solution’ to creating tent cards. I use a custom table in Landscape orientation which lets you rotate the text in ‘obverse cells’. I then print on a 180-gsm A4 card and cut the result into 6 tents.

You can adjust this template to any size and number of tents per page depending on your requirements. I’ve attached a .doc version for you to play with.

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After many struggle on Windows trying to see my books and novels at actual print size on the Microsoft Windows document screen, I did the following:

1. Turn on “Rulers” on in Windows for your document. There’s a checkbox for this under the “View” tab in Microsoft Word. Now you can see your pages dimensions in inches
2. Go to File > Print. Find your printer, and choose “Print Properties” In there you will have find a “Paper” or “Paper/Quality” tab for your printer and add your custom print size in inches. In my case I added a 6″ x 9″ value. You may have to add it and then click “ok” and open it again to see it. Until you do this Microsoft Word will not allow your page to show the custom size in the listing.
3. Go back to Microsoft Word and your document. Choose “Page Layout” > “Size”, and you will see your “Custom 6 x 9” or whatever size layout. Choose it. Now your ruler should show your printed pages actual size so you can begin to verify your layout versus the actual print size.
4. Now “How do I now show Actual Size of Page On Your Screen”? Good question! That it turns out is almost impossible, mainly because of the fact Print often uses 300 dots per inch printing versus windows monitors which often use 96 dpi. On MAC its 72 I believe. So even if you scaled to get the actual inches on screen as in print, the quality would be worse on screen. But whats worse, Word and most software still cannot connect those screen sizes to all the custom print driver sizes. Too many variable, I guess.

But the SOLUTION I found to this problem was easy! Simply go and “Scale” your Word document manually until it matches your custom page using a wooden ruler compared to your documents ruler. Use your Word “Ruler” you just added to the display to compare the real measure of an inch on your wooden ruler. In my case, first I checked my monitor to see if it was scaled by me to some custom size. No, it was set at 100% as far as the monitor display. Im on Windows so Im at 96 dpi. I then went back and scaled my Microsoft Word doc, under “View” > “Zoom” and set it to about 116%, tweaking it until they two rulers matched. Also set as your doc to “One Page” in the View area. Now my page looks almost EXACTLY as the actual print view, and with the custom 6″ x 9″ print setting! The only difference you cannot control is the quality…..the pixelated fonts in screens at 96 dpi compared to the 300-600 dpi look grainy. You can expect better printed versions of your doc on a high quality printer verus the print view. But at least now you have a clearer idea what to expect.

Hope that helps everyone!

M Stokely

“Phantammeron Book One” – Get my NEW epic fantasy novel series!
http://www.phantammeron.com

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