How to expand text boundaries in Word 2013?

Hi, Suzanne. I just finished days of Tier 2 support sessions on this text boundaries business (is it a bug, or a feature?). Finally, the developers/design team told us that it's a feature--at the request of users! When I asked them to show me an MS forum/blog showing those requests, they refused/couldn't come up with one ("only for developers"). The solution is clear:

1. Change Save As to the .DOC format (2003 Compatibility Mode)
2. Change margins, etc. to be what you want as your default New document format.
3. Right-click on the Normal template, click on Update to match selection.

From now on, all your documents will show the real text boundaries. And if you want at any time to check whether you're losing out on any DOCX features, then do the following:

1. Go to: File | Inspect Document | Check Compatibility, and the chances are that your use of Compatibility Mode isn't depriving you of any "new" features.

Thanks so much for MS developers, who can't distinguish between a feature and a bug....

Hi Suzanne, THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!! Your tip was very helpful and it worked! :)

This is not my tip (it's kenpmason's), and most of it makes no sense. Update to Match Selection applies to styles, not document formatting. Saving in .doc format will deprive you of quite a few new features. What will work is saving in Word 2010 .docx format. It is not possible to do that directly, but you can achieve it by setting the Compatibility Options of a given document or template to Word 2010. As explained by Jay Freedman in **this thread**, you can do that as follows:

Press Alt+F11to open the macro editor, and press Ctrl+G to open the Immediate window at the bottom of the editor. In that window, paste this line and then press Enter:

ActiveDocument.SetCompatibilityMode wdWord2010

Close the macro editor. Then open the Options dialog, go to the Advanced options, and scroll to the bottom. Change the dropdown "Lay out this document as if created in" to "Microsoft Word 2010". At that point, the list of 2010 layout options will appear below the dropdown.

In his reply on March 5, 2015, Charles Kenyon offers a template that provides that functionality.

Unfortunately, that is the default view of text boundaries in Word 2013 (and cannot be changed AFAIK), which is one reason I will not be using Word 2013, as I refuse to either deal with that display or try to operate without text boundaries displayed. This is another instance of Word designers not understanding how people in the real world use Word.

Hi, I just signed up for an account because of how frustrating this issue is.  You're spot on in your post that the developers are disconnected from how the product is actually used.  That was clear in the transition from 2003 to 2007.  We went from a product with a familiar interface to one that was drastically different and to top it off, the help was what I have started calling "anti-help".  You could search in the help using terms that included the actual command labels (e.g. "insert picture") and get irrelevant results such as "how to post your document on the web!"  Ugh.

Anyway, the point of my reply is to offer a seemingly workable workaround.  It is unrealistic to expect users to continue to use a template based on an earlier version (as others have suggested), so I wouldn't consider that a long term solution.  Instead, since by default Word does not print background document colors, you can simply add a white document border and change the background slightly so that you can see it while creating your document.  The white border will not print on most printers (some may have settings that will print it as a grey line, unfortunately, so you will want to test it).

The idea came to me from my Word Perfect word processing days.  I remembered that Word used to have a mode that would allow you to work on your document with a blue background and white text (like the Word Perfect interface).  To be able to see the white border on your screen you won't need to go with a background as drastic as the old Word Perfect days, simply choose a color you can tolerate.  I find that "Blue Accent 1- lighter 80%" is an acceptable hue.  But there are likely infinite other colors that others would find preferable to this.  If you find something you like, simply save the configuration as your default template.

Unfortunately, that is the default view of text boundaries in Word 2013 (and cannot be changed AFAIK), which is one reason I will not be using Word 2013, as I refuse to either deal with that display or try to operate without text boundaries displayed. This is another instance of Word designers not understanding how people in the real world use Word.

I just discovered another option that works equally as well.  Tun on gridlines and set the spacing of the gridlines to equal that of your writeable area.  When you set them to align with the margins, you then get a grid that outlines your workspace.

You may need to adjust the width and height of the grid to get it to show properly on the right and bottom edges.  For example, say you're working with a 8.5" x 11" document, and your margins are 1.2" left and right and 1.2" top and bottom.  This gives you a working area of 6.1" and 8.6".  However, if I set my grid spacing to 6.1" by 8.6" the bottom boundary doesn't show for some reason.  Shortening that height to 8.59" brings it right into view and provides the boundary I'm accustomed to.

Unfortunately, the option to adjust grid spacing isn't all that intuitively located.  You have to select the "Page Layout" tab and then select the "Align" drop-down toolbar button.  Once you're there, one of the available choices is to modify the "Grid Settings".  Such an odd place for that, but there it is.