Put It All Together: Design a "Facing Pages" Layout

Do you plan to print a document, such as a handbook, on both sides of the page and then bind it? If so, you might want to optimize the design for a “facing pages” layout (also called a “two-page spread”).

Create “mirror” margins   You can create documents in which the margins on the left page exactly mirror the margins on the right page. Click Page Setup (File menu). On the Margins tab, select the Mirror margins check box, and then set the inside and outside margin values. To include a “gutter,” or extra space that’s added to the inside margins to allow for binding, set the gutter value on the Margins tab.

Specify different headers and footers for odd and even pages   Click Header and Footer (View menu), and then click Page Setup. On the Layout tab of the Page Setup dialog box, click Different odd and even. Then create the headers and footers as usual.

Create styles for side heads or margin notes   To position these items, use text boxes. Click Text Box (Insert menu). To format the text box, right-click the text box, and then click Format Object. Here, for example, you can set the line style, color, size, and position.

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