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Word - portrait and landscape in one document and the importance of sections

Introduction

Landscape and portrait in one document

Sometimes you might want to include a page in landscape orientation, in the middle of a normal 'portrait' document - for example if you need to include a wide table or schedule of some sort. You can achieve this in Word by creating multiple sections in the document. Each section can have its own Page Setup settings. You can do this by using Insert, Break (Word 2007: Page Layout ribbon tab, Page Setup group, Breaks, Section Breaks). But it is easier to let Word do the work for you as shown below:

To do this, position the cursor immediately before the place where the landscape section is to begin and choose File, Page Setup (Word 2007:Page Layout ribbon, Page Setup group, Page Setup dialog,). In the 'margins' section, set the orientation to 'landscape' and from the 'Apply to' list choose 'This point forward':

If you now look at a multi-page preview of your document you will see that the pages after the current cursor position are now in landscape orientation:

If you have your 'non-printing' characters turned on, then you will see the section break that has been automatically inserted:

If you need the document to revert back to portrait after the landscape section, you will need to click at the end of the landscape pages and use File, Page Setup to create another portrait section again from 'this point forward'.

If you have split your document into multiple sections then the status bar is an invaluable aid in helping you find out which section you are in: the section number is usually shown on the left hand side of the status bar.