Well Buck, 1" is barely sufficient and 15mm way too narrow. As Jay has
pointed out, the eye just cannot comfortably read page after page filled
with text from edge to edge.

The important factors are the eye needs to be able to scan lines of text
without undue left/right movement of the eye and the eye needs sufficient
white space between lines to act as a guide, otherwise the eye may wonder
onto the line below or above. This is why many people prefer reading from
written pages to reading from a monitor because a monitor is far too wide
for sustained comfortable reading.

Using standard 10 or 11 point type, the maximum width an eye can comfortable
scan is around 6", so on a standard width A4/Letter page (8½" wide), the
margins need to be around 1¼" wide and there needs to be approximately
15/16points leading between lines.

This is why paperbacks are all around the size they are and not all magazine
width. They are easy to read.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://word.mvps.org/



"Buck Rabbit" wrote in message
...
:I changed the set default margins from 1" (which I think is a ridiculous
waste) to 15mm all round, Top, Bottom, Left, & Right.
: Depending on how tight your printer cuts off the printing at the bottom of
your page is the only limitation to extending the
: readable area of your page to whatever you choose. Make your own rules.
:
: Buck
:
:
: wrote in message ...
: Carys wrote:
:
: I don't know if this is just a preference thing, but the default
margins in
: Word seem too generous. Does anyone out there have any suggestions for
this?
: --
: Carys
:
: What margins are you getting? Modern printed work requires generous
: margins (and they look better). Maybe you're used to dense pages? If so,
: and you haven't got some problem, it's a matter of becoming used to it.
:
: Tell us what you're getting.
:
: