Word documents don't fill the page for printing.

Question

Word documents don't fill the page for printing.

Hilary 0

When I try to print a word document a large grey/blue box appears on the right of the screen and when I print the document the grey area doesn't show but the printed job is just in a small area in the middle of the page instead of covering the whole page. I have followed instructions for resetting Word and neither method cleared the problem.

0 comments

Answer recommended by moderator

0 additional answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Stefan Blom 349.1K MVP Volunteer Moderator

What do you see in the print preview at File > Print? One possibility is that Track Changes is enabled and that Word is reserving space, the so-called Markup area, for track changes balloons.

See the screen shot below.

It is not really obvious from the preview, but the Markup area will make the actual printout (or PDF version) of the document smaller.

User's image

Hilary 0 Reputation points

2026-08-04T12:53:18.6+00:00

Thank you Stefan for your reply. Your screen shot is exactly what I see. I have read about the mark up area and have tried the options, simple markup, all mark up no mark up and original but none seem to make a difference.
Hilary 0 Reputation points

2026-08-04T12:55:11.92+00:00

Thank you Stefan for your reply. Your screen shot is exactly what I see. I have read about the mark up area and have tried the options, simple markup, all mark up no mark up and original but none seem to make a difference.
Hilary 0 Reputation points

2026-08-04T12:57:13.79+00:00

Thank you Stefan for your reply. Your screen shot is exactly what I see. I have read about the mark up area and have tried the options, simple markup, all mark up no mark up and original but none seem to make a difference.
Stefan Blom 349.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-08-04T14:01:01.58+00:00

@Hilary

To permanently get rid of the Markup area, you will have to accept all changes and turn off the tracking.

On the Review tab, click the arrow on the Accept button and then click Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking. See the screen shot below.

Depending on your version of Word, you may have delete all comments as well (Review tab > Comments group > Delete > Delete All Comments in Document).

You may want to do this on a copy of the document, to avoid deleting something that you later decide that you need.
Hilary 0 Reputation points

2026-08-04T18:05:33.44+00:00

Thank you so much Stefan, you are a star, that worked.
Stefan Blom 349.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-08-04T18:06:51.5166667+00:00

You are welcome.