Hide White Space at the Top and Bottom of the Page

One major annoyance of almost all word-processing programs is the space they waste displaying the top and bottom margins of the page you’re typing. If a sentence extends across a page break, the first part of the sentence is separated by an inch or more of screen space from the second part of the same sentence. You can hide the page header and footer by double-clicking in the break between pages. In Windows, you can use File > Options > Display and remove the checkmark next to Show white space between pages in print layout view. On a Mac, you’ll find the option in Word > Preferences > View.

To save time, you can assign a command to a keystroke that will show or hide the white space between pages. Follow the technique in tip 9, above, and assign the command ViewTogglePageBoundaries to a key combination. I use Alt-zero, which Word doesn’t use for anything by default.