MS Word is great. It’s one of the most popular file editing and word processing tools out there. It has a great user interface and most things are incredibly easy to accomplish when it comes to editing or managing Word documents.

However, sometimes, things aren’t as simple as you’d like them to be.

Such as making just one page landscape in an MS Word document.

Turning your whole document into portrait or landscape is easy.

But what about making one page landscape in a whole document?

Because, by default, MS Word orients its pages in portrait mode. Which is fine in most cases, but when you’re working with huge documents with visual assets, you’ll want everything to be aligned correctly.

If that’s the case, below, we’ll be covering everything you need to know about turning document pages into landscape - whether you’re MS Word 2010, 2013, 2016, Google Docs, and so on.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

  • Portrait Versus Landscape: Page Orientation In MS Word
  • How To Make Only One Page Landscape in MS Word
  • How To Change the Orientation of the Whole document To Landscape In MS Word
  • How To Turn Specific Text Orientation Into Landscape In MS Word
  • How To Print MS Word Document In Landscape
  • How To Change MS Word Document Orientation Back To Portrait Mode
  • How To Change One page To Landscape In Google Docs

Portrait Versus Landscape: Page Orientation In MS Word

Page orientation is basically the way in which the rectangular page is displayed for viewing. 

In carrying out day-to-day office assignments, you may be required to instinctively rotate between the landscape and portrait page orientations to display data or images in Microsoft Word. 

Useful in various contexts, the dimensions of the portrait and landscape page layout differ in height and width

With the portrait orientation aligned vertically, and landscape page orientation aligned horizontally. 

In order to make the most out of these two-page orientations, you would need to know what page layout would be best suited to the data presented in context. 

The formatting of your document would therefore create a perfect page structure in MS Word and this would easily provide clarity to your readers. 

For instance, in order to present data shown in big tables, graphs, or illustrative charts in a Word document, it would be better to alternate from portrait to landscape orientation. 

However, portrait mode is preferred in presenting data that is in text form. 

This page layout enables the user to view the contents of the page and could be used for writing, drafting legal work, contracts, letters, and so on.

The landscape mode caters to the horizontal alignment of the human sight such that its borders have more width than height, and the portrait mode has more width than height.

How To Make Only One Page Landscape in MS Word

When making quick changes to your document display, you could take the liberty to swap one page of the entire file from its default portrait orientation to landscape

This is typically the result of needing to present tabular or illustrative data. By taking advantage of the right settings on the MS Word program interface, this takes just a few clicks. 

Here’s how to turn just one page in Microsoft Word landscape:

  1. Launch the Microsoft Word software on your PC, MAC, or smartphone. Then, open your Word document to make edits. Move your cursor to the beginning of the page you would like to change to landscape.
  2. Locate the Layout menu on the Ribbon bar, then click on it. This would display a number of options, select Breaks and scroll down the drop-down menu to click on Next Page under the Section Breaks section. Automatically, your page content would be transferred to a new page.
layout ribbon in Microsoft Word
  1. Click on Orientation icon on the Layout menu, a drop-down list will appear, then click on Landscape. This will instantly mark all the pages after the break you made and change them to landscape, such that the start of the page you marked, to the end of the document would be displayed in landscape. 
  2. In order to return the other pages after the single page you require back to portrait orientation, place your cursor at the beginning of the next page or the next page, then select “Layout” > “Breaks” > “Next Page” just like in the second step
breaks tab in the page layout ribbon
  1. Select “Layout” > “Orientation” > “Portrait”. The rest of the document would be altered to portrait mode.

How To Change the Orientation of the Whole document to Landscape In MS Word

There are 2 ways you can change the orientation of your whole MS Word document. 

And we’ll cover both below.

To change the page orientation of the entire MS Word document, here’s what you do:

  • Step one: Launch Microsoft Word software on your PC or MAC. Then open the document you wish to format.
  • Step two: On the taskbar above, select Layout. Then, locate the Orientation option below and click on it, a drop-down menu will appear, chose Portrait.
how to change the orientation of a page in MSW

Here’s another way to change the orientation of the whole MS Word document to landscape:

  1. Click on the Margins option on the Layout taskbar. 
  2. Scroll down to the Custom Margins option at the bottom of the list. The Page Setup window will pop up on the screen, under the Margins tab, locate the Orientation option and then click on Landscape.
where to customize margins for your MS Word pages
  1. Move your mouse to the Apply to option underneath. A drop-down menu will appear, click on Whole Document.
  2. To save changes to your document, click OK.

How To Turn Specific Text Orientation Into Landscape In MS Word

When making edits to your Word document, sometimes you might want to make only a portioned text of your document appear as landscape orientation

This may be for a number of reasons, such as the need to display a specific quote, table or graph as clearly as possible.

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Here are the steps to change the orientation of text inside your Word document to landscape;

  1. Open the document you wish to format on Word document. Then, use your mouse to highlight the part of the text you want to display on a landscape page.
  2. On the taskbar, select the Layout menu, then click on Margins. A drop-down menu will appear, select the Custom Margins option at the bottom of the list.
  3. A pop-up window will appear on the screen to show the Page Setup. Under the Margins tab, locate the Orientation option, and choose Landscape.
  4. Move your cursor down to the Apply to box, and click on Selected Text.
applying margins to selected text
  1. To finish it up, click OK. Your selected text should now be displayed on a landscape page, such that the rest of your document will still remain in portrait orientation.

How To Print MS Word Document In Landscape

In cases where you have forgotten to change the page orientation of your entire document to landscape, you could do so while making finishing touches. 

The Print option on your file tab contains settings to change the page layout in just a few clicks.

Here’s how to print an MS Word document in landscape mode:

  1. Locate the File option on the menu bar of your Windows, it will take you to another screen. On the left side of the screen, select Print.
  2. The print settings and page setup would be displayed on the screen for viewing and formatting.
  3. Under the Settings, locate the Portrait Orientation, an arrow would be displayed next to it to reveal a drop-down menu with Landscape Orientation, click on it.
  4. These changes could be made to the entire document or just specific pages to Landscape. To finish it up, Click Print.
orientation settings for the document

How To Change MS Word Document Orientation Back To Portrait Mode

To return the page orientation of your Word document back to Portrait orientation, here’s what you do:

  1. Locate Layout on the menu bar and click on it, then select Orientation
  2. Then choose Portrait. Your document would immediately be displayed in Portrait mode.

How To Change One page to Landscape In Google Docs

Finally, before wrapping up, here’s how to change one page into landscape orientation in Google Docs:

  1. Launch Google Docs on your web browser. Select the file you would like to make changes to.
  2. Click where you would like to add a section break.
  3. Locate the Insert option on the menu bar, then click on it. select “Break” > “Section Break”.
  4. Click on File > Page Setup, a popup menu will appear on the screen, beneath the Apply to option, select This section.
instructions into changing just one page into landscape mode
  1. Go ahead to change the Page Orientation to Landscape
  2. Lastly, click OK to effect the changes.

Conclusion 

So, hope this guide to MS Word page orientations was helpful!

Modifying the structure of your page setup has numerous benefits that could aid the presentation in the chosen document. 

From showcasing text to advanced information like charts, graphs, images, tables, and more - there are many reasons why you’d make just one page landscape. Or alternatively, you can just one page landscape and the other portrait. And so on.

Either way, once you know your way around the MS Word interface, there’s a lot you can accomplish.

And as long as you follow the steps presented above, you would be able to successfully modify your page orientation.

Now, if you’re looking for more ways to organize, edit, and manage your MS Word and PDF documents, you’ll also want to read:

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