How to Shrink a Word Document From Legal Size to Letter Size for Printing

By Daniel Hatter

Adjust your Word document size to fit the paper size available.
i Photo courtesy Microsoft

The size of Microsoft Word documents can be changed on existing documents at any time, regardless of their current size. If, for example, you have a document formatted in legal size -- 8.5" by 14" -- but you only have letter size -- 8.5" by 11" -- paper available to print on, shrink the document from legal to letter size. The content of the document will stay the same, and after printing you can change it back to legal size.

Click the "File" menu and then click "Print" in the left pane.

Click the "Legal" drop-down menu under "Settings" and select "Letter." Each page in the document will now be resized from legal to letter size. As letter-sized paper is smaller than legal-sized paper, there will be more pages in the document.

Click the "Print" button to print your document on letter-sized paper.

Click the "Page Layout" tab, click the "Size" drop-down menu and select "Legal" to change the document back to legal size when you are done.

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