Of course, limitations like this just point out how much the core code of
Word is in need of an overhaul. Probably some of this stuff hasn't been
touched in a dozen years.
The technical reason for the limitation is that Word positions everything on
the page in terms of "twips" (1 twip = 1/20 point = 1/1440 inch) from the
top left corner. Then 22 inches = 31680 twips. This number was chosen
because it fits in a signed integer variable, which is 15 bits of a 16-bit
value (maximum value 32768; the 16th bit is used for the sign).
This is unfortunate, since the "natural" size of integers in Windows on
Intel and AMD processors has been 32 bits for quite a while and is now
heading into 64-bit territory. The processor actually has to do extra work
to translate between these variable sizes.
However, I can understand Microsoft's reluctance to rewrite the core code.
The downside is the likelihood of introducing new bugs, and the upside is
very limited -- how many more copies of Office would sell because you could
print bigger pages? The business case for it just isn't there.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ:
http://word.mvps.org
Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
The absolute limit for paper height and width in Word is 22".
"meadows" wrote in message
...
I've read something about using Windows Forms to fool Word into
using a larger size, but I was hoping someone had tried it before I
give it a go. The printer driver I plan on using is Adobe PDF that
shows up once Acrobat is installed. Acrobat can handle 200x200.
Unfortunately, I need to create the document with Word because it's
all I have.
- Barry
"RealCav" wrote:
I have the exact same problem. I'm also using Word 2002 on XP.
Unfortunately the answer for MS Word is that it can't do it. I even
downloaded a device driver for a plotter so that I could fool it
into generating Postscript.
However, according to Graham Mayor in the post just below this,
ain't no way no how. We need a publishing program.
"meadows" wrote:
I want to set up a custom page size in Word for an 8.5" x 36"
document. Word 2002 will only let me go up to 22" length. How do
I get it to let me go to 36"? My goal is to create the document
in Word and then make a pdf using Acrobat. I'm using MS Word 2002
on Windows XP Home.
Thanks
- Barry