How to get rid of the "Your Margins Are Pretty Small" Warning?

Anonymous
2013-10-17T19:47:51+00:00

How do I get rid of the warning in Office 2013 that says "Your margins are pretty small, some of the content you print may be cut off. Are you sure you want to print?"?

I have read: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/166055

I set my margins to small by default, as I know that my HP printer can print to that size. (I have been printing like this for about 2 months, with no cut offs!) However word refuses to acknowledge this.

Is there some sort of global setting that stops this? As the amount of times that I have hit quick print, and then gone to the printer and then realised that it hasn't printed, because I forgot to click yes to the warning! It is really annoying!

Also, I really do not want to follow the steps in KB166055, as I would have to do that for every single document, and even then it decreases my margins, to sizes which word considers "Acceptable", which wastes paper, and  messes up my document organisation completely! These "Acceptable" Margins are massive! Can I stop it without changing my margin size?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2013-10-17T21:04:54+00:00

The unprintable area respected by Word is specified by the printer driver, not by Word itself. Word gets the information from the printer driver, so unless you can redefine the unprintable area in the printer Property settings, there may be no way around this message.

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2013-10-18T04:06:46+00:00

The OP has already said he doesn't want to use the settings Word assigns when he uses "Fix." But since those minimums are established by the printer driver, there is really no way around them. And there is no need to consult the printer manual because the values Word uses when you click "Fix" are the ones prescribed by the printer manufacturer.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T00:07:42+00:00

    Typically when I've seen that sort of message it included a button to "Repair" the margins, and the repair was usually very small, not a switch to MS's default "phat" 1" margins (I don't use them myself, for the same reason).

    Find the user guide for your printer (either included in the box, or on the CD, or from the builder's web site) to find out what the exact "unprintable" margin limits are. Typically there will be a narrow margin on 3 sides, left and right to hold paper flat in place and top to allow printer to "pickup" the page before it starts printing. You can use those values to set your margins to avoid this problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T06:00:23+00:00

    As Suzanne has indicated, the printer driver sets the page limits reported by Word. There may be a later driver available from HP, that might use different settings, but I wouldn't count on it.

    You may be able to turn off the alerts with a macro in the normal template that intercepts the quick print command e.g.

    Sub FilePrintDefault()

        Application.DisplayAlerts = wdAlertsNone

        ActiveDocument.PrintOut

        Application.DisplayAlerts = wdAlertsAll

    End Sub

    but you will have to test it for yourself to see if it overrides this message.

    http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T06:59:50+00:00

    And I SAID that in MY EXPERIENCE the adjustments were trivial. Obviously we are using different printer drivers to get these radically different results.

    But the physical reality is that unless the OP is using a Guttenburg press, the unprintable area physically required by printer is not going to be the 1" default margins MS uses, so IN THEORY, the "fix" button should not be resetting to MS 1" defaults.  (Sorry, I haven't used the MS default margins for so long I can't remember if they are still 1" or more)

    I was hoping that by setting margins that are within those defined by the builder he might avoid triggering the automatic fix, without reverting to the excessively wide "fix" margins.

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