my Microsoft version does not allow for adjusting document size

Question

Why does my Microsoft version not allow me to create new-sized documents? There are only fixed sizes, with no option to create new ones. Why?

Answer 1

Word for Mac displays the preset page sizes that are available in the printer driver of your currently selected printer. If you have not selected a printer, Word will only display a handful of standard page sizes.

You can create custom page sizes by choosing File>Page Setup. Click on the Paper Size drop-down and select Manage Custom Sizes. Click on the plus sign to add a new page size. Give it a name, then set the page size and margins. After you create this custom size, it will be available in the page size dropdowns in Word.

Answer 2

Word for the web and some consumer Word versions only expose a fixed list of page sizes in the UI and do not persist custom defaults between documents. Customization is limited by design in these editions.

In Word for the web, margins and page layout can be changed for the current document, but new documents always revert to the built‑in defaults (for example, Normal margins and standard page sizes). There is no built‑in option in that environment to define and save arbitrary new page sizes as reusable defaults for all future documents.

On desktop products that support it (for example, Publisher), custom page sizes can be created via the Page Setup or Size options. In Word for the web, that capability is intentionally constrained and behaves as described in the documentation: layout changes apply per document and do not change the global set of available sizes.

To work around this limitation, the supported approach is to create a document with the desired layout and then reuse it as a template, since Word for the web will not add new custom sizes to the global list or remember them as defaults.

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References:

• Change the default settings for new documents
• Resize the page or paper in Publisher