[Bert Coules]

Suzanne,

I prefer to do the writing or typing first and determine the layout later.

Ah, you see, I can't work like that. I have to do content and layout
simultaneously.

As for the PDFs, it appears that it is not the printable area that is
shrinking but the print area...

I think I see what you mean. Certainly, I can print a page from a Word
document and have it come out exactly as I intend; but if I convert it to
PDF (and I've tried several different conversion programs, all with the same
result) then the shrinkage occurs.

...are you sure you're printing with "No scaling"?

Thanks for the thought, but yes, I'm completely sure.

Could this be a result of printing to a specific printer?

Ah, I've no way of checking that, having only the one. Besides which, the
whole point of looking into converting to PDF was so that documents could be
emailed and printed by someone else with the formatting intact: if the
results differ from printer to printer then the approach isn't worth my
pursuing.

Bert