Tips for Printing and Distribution of Word Documents

Most people think that printing and distributing a Word document is as simple as clicking on the printer icon and shoving it into an inbox or envelope, or clicking on "add attachment" in your email. And it can be that simple if you don't care about presentation or the readability of your document. In an effort to make your documents shine (and remind everyone who receives your document just how good you really are) we're going to take a look at the ways to best prepare your documents for printing and for email. With these checklists, you will always know how to make your documents look their best.

For Print

Font Style and Size

Your goal is to make things as readable as possible. With the exception of limited lines, like a title or a caption, you should skip on elaborate fonts. Keep it simple and remember that your reader may not have perfect vision. Some highly readable fonts include: Times New Roman, Lucida Grand, Arial and Tahoma.

Spacing

Long blocks of single spaced text are hard to read, so consider either breaking the text up into smaller paragraphs to create more white space, or double space the text. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Highlight the text you want to double space.

2. Click on the "Page Layout" tab.

3. Click on the bottom right arrow on the "Paragraph" section to make a new window appear.

4. Under the "Indents and Spacing" tab find the words "Line Spacing" and choose "Double" from the pull down menu.

5. Click on "ok".

Page Numbers

This will keep things organized and ensure your reader can put things back together if the document is dropped. To insert page numbers:

1. Click on the "Insert" tab.

2. Find the button labeled "Page Number" and click on it.

3. Choose between top, bottom or margin placements and then select from the list of options that will appear.

4. Click on your choice to insert the numbers

For Email and the Web

File Size

If you have big images, audio or embedded Excel spreadsheet data, make sure you haven't made a jumbo-sized file that can't be emailed. Your system administrator can tell you the max send size for an attachment on your system.

Creating a zip file will help compress the size and may make it small enough to send. To zip a file:

1. Go to your desktop and right click

2. In the drop down menu, select new / "compressed (zipped) folder"

3. Create a name for the new zip file

4. Go to the Start menu

5. Select "My Computer"

6. Drag and drop the item(s) you want to send into the new zip file

Linked Files

If you link one file to another on your hard drive and send your document without also sending the referenced file, your readers will not be able to view that information. The solution is to go back and embed the spreadsheet. There is a posting on how to do just that right here on OfficeArrow.

Format

If you are not sure if your receiver has Word you can get more information in this article.

Now you have it, all the information that you need in order to get your Word document looking its absolute best so that you can make the ultimate impression.