Tip #115 - Changing Your Orientation (in Word)

100 (or more) Computer Tips in 100 (or more) Days

Tip #115 - Changing Your Orientation (in Word)

Suppose you need to have some charts in your document and they need to be on landscape pages but the rest of your document is in portrait orientation. What are your options? I was working on a document in Microsoft Word like this recently and I wanted to insert a landscape page in the middle of a Word document, between two portrait pages. Of course some creative folks would just put the graphic in sideways since it prints out the same, but because more documents are being read on-line rather than being printed (right??) I wanted to make it easy to read. I didn't want to have to imagine the readers tilting their head to the left/right to view the chart.

Pages in Word document with different orientations.

Back "in the day" we would create two documents when we needed pages with different orientations, one for all of the portrait pages and the other for the landscape. It was challenging keeping the page numbers sorted out in these two documents but we didn't see any other alternative.  I don't remember exactly which version of Microsoft Word introduced the feature that allows for multiple page orientations but I believe it was either in 98 or 2000. The secret to making it work is Section Breaks!

For those of you who use the very popular press the Return/Enter key until you're on a new page method of pagination, it might come as a surprise that not only can you insert page breaks but you can insert section breaks in a word document. There are many reasons for section breaks but we'll only talk about their need when changing the page orientation.

To change the orientation of a page:

• Click in the document where you would like to insert the landscape page.
• From the Page Layout tab, Page Setup group click the Breaks option.
• From the Breaks list choose Section Breaks - Next Page.
• Without moving your cursor choose Orientation - Landscape from the same area of the ribbon (Page Layout tab, Page Setup group).
• The page that your cursor is on will now become a landscape page...and all of the pages following it (the current section) will also become landscape.
• When you want to return to portrait orientation, insert another Section Break - Next Page and choose Orientation - Portrait.

You'll have to use the same steps to return to a portrait orientation if you don't want the rest of your document in landscape.

While you're looking at the types of Breaks available in Word. People mostly using either Page breaks or Section Breaks - Next Page. Note: You can insert a page break from your Keyboard using the Ctrl (Command) + Enter/Return keys. 

Promise me you'll insert page breaks rather than pressing the Enter/Return key until a new page appears. 

Happy Computing!

Diane

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