Save Paper by Changing Your Default Document Margins

When you print a document, spreadsheet or web page, the seemingly innocent empty space around the edges of the paper is actually contributing to our current global environmental crisis in several ways. This empty space is the margin, and the size of the margin is determined by document margin settings.

Microsoft Corp. ships Microsoft Word, its flagship word processing software, with default document margin settings of 1" on the top and bottom and a spacious 1.25" on the left and right sides. But did you know that according to a study by the Penn State Green Destiny Council, reducing the margins on printed documents to a respectable 0.75" on all sides will result in 19% more usable area on the page and can thereby create a total reduction of paper usage by approximately 4.75%. For example, a 100-page document with default margins can be reduced to just 81 pages with 0.75" margins.

Even this modest reduction in personal paper usage can result in spending less money on paper for your printer, and more importantly, result in fewer life-giving trees lost to the energy-consuming, pollution-producing pulp and paper industry.

Environmental Impact of the Paper Industry

Aside from the negative environmental impact of deforestation, each step of the industrial process in which virgin trees are chopped, chipped, pulped and distributed to end-users also has a significant harmful impact on the environment.

Because breaking down wood fiber into pulp is very energy intensive and requires large amounts of water, the pulp and paper industry is one of the largest consumers of both energy and water in the U.S. Toxic chlorine is then used to bleach pulp in order to make bright white paper. The pulp and paper industry also contributes to air and water pollution by releasing various greenhouse gases such as carbon monoxide into the atmosphere and hazardous chemicals such as chloroform into local water systems.

However, efforts are underway by many paper companies to use renewable energy, incorporate more post-consumer recycled paper content, eliminate the use of chlorine and better manage pollution.

Petition Microsoft To Change Default Document Margins

There are some, such Tamara Krinsky, the person behind the website changethemargins.com, that believe the simple act of changing your margins can help save the planet. On Krinsky's Change the Margins site, you can learn more about the environmental impact of paper conservation and sign a petition asking Microsoft Corporation to take action and change the default margins on all its Office products. The tagline for Change the Margins is, "When it comes to environmental disaster, the margin for error is small. Here's one step we can all take."

How To Change Your Default Document Margins

Until Microsoft can be convinced to change Word's default margins, to change the default margins on new Word documents yourself, follow these four easy steps:

On the Window's PC version of Microsoft Word:

Go to "File," then "Page Setup."
Click the "Margins" tab, and change the margins to 0.75.
Then click "Default." Answer "Yes" to the question, "Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template."
On the Mac OS X version of Microsoft Word:

Go to "Format," then "Document."
Click the "Margins" tab, and change the margins to 0.75.
Then click "Default."

Sources:
Penn State University Green Destiny Council, "Mueller Policy Paper #1: Reduce Standard Margin Settings."
Tamara Krinsky, "Changethemargins.com."