Margin default issue in Word

[AClark0806]

So I am having a peculiar issue.  One of my students contacted me today because the margins in their Word file didn't look appropriate in an assignment they were working on.  I checked their work, and Word seemed to be manually moving their margin two inches too far to the right. 

I was able to do a manual fix on their assignment but wasn't sure how to permanently correct the problem.  Then, after I sent them their corrected assignment, on a sinking hunch I opened a blank word document on my own computer and the margin of error (pun intended) had been transferred over to me.

I know there's a fix for this but I cannot find it.  Here's a screenshot of my ruler tool.

[#2]

@AClark0806 

Unfortunately, your screen shot doesn't give much information. It only tells us that the left margin is wide. 

If you want to, you can share a sample document with the forum so that we can take a closer look. 

[#3]

@Stefan_Blom  

I'm happy to provide an example document to show what the problem is.  Is a Dropbox link acceptable?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/o9nhvvnub6zgpsldb5t5y/Docu-Example.docx?rlkey=w3qgpuqnbler6ncggs4ey0r...

This is really vexing me, I'm sure the fix is ridiculously simple but I can't ID it.

Thanks!

[#4 · Accepted solution]

@AClark0806 

When I open your document, I see what you see: the left margin is wider than it should be. My unit of measurement is centimeters, but the end result is the same, with a 2" margin rather han a 1" one (not counting the first line indent which is also specified in the sample file). 

Since you are seeing this peculiar error in new, blank documents, I recommend that you exit Word and rename the Normal template. 

Any existing documents that exhibit the error can then be copied into a new, blank document and the issue should be fixed. Note that when you copy, omit the final paragraph mark of the source document and copy the rest of the content. 

To show/hide paragraph marks (¶) as well as other nonprinting marks, you can use the ¶ icon on the Home tab.

[#5]

That worked. Thank you.

[#6]

@AClark0806 

You are welcome.

[#7]

@AClark0806 

Note that the Normal template can hold a number of user customizations.

Many of these can be copied to a newly created template. If you need to do this, please post a new question on how to copy the particular customization.

• Macros (Recorded macros saved in the NewMacros module of the template)
• AutoText (and other custom Building Blocks)
• Formatted AutoCorrect Entries
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Custom Page layout for new documents
• Custom Styles and Modified Built-In Styles

It is possible to routinely create backups using a macro. Here is a my article on doing this.