You’ve created your custom header for your inspection reports, but perhaps the report body is printing farther from your header than you would prefer. Learn how you may tweak your header and margin settings further to eliminate extra space between your header and report body…

You may have some extra space or invisible items at the bottom of your header that is pushing the top margin of the report downward.  To check and adjust:

• Use File > Page Setup to access your layout settings.
• Click Customize for your header/footer document to edit it.
• While editing the document, click Insert > Header to access that area.
• Reduce any blank or empty space in your header that is below your information. For instance, delete or remove any extra blank lines there.
• You may find it helpful to use View > Display control codes to “see” invisible any items like spaces or carriage returns that are present.
• If you have a blank line or carriage return there that can’t be removed (such as following a table for instance) that takes up too much space, you may reduce its font size in order to reduce the size of that line. Click there and use the font size selection in the toolbar to adjust the size of the line to 1 or 2 points to virtually eliminate the space.

Don’t forget to check both the regular Header as well as the First page header for any extra space. The top margin of your report must universally accommodate all header areas you use. Use Insert > First page header to check or adjust a separate first page header if one is present and used.

Once you have eliminated any extra empty space from your actual header areas, you may adjust the top margin of the body of the document upward. At final print time, your inspection report data merges into the body area of your header/footer document. Thus, the margins of your header/footer document apply to your entire report. To adjust your document margins:

• While the document is open for editing, use File > Page Setup within the document itself to adjust its margins.
• Set the top margin smaller to move it upward. Don’t worry about reducing the top margin too small as it will auto-adjust itself downward as needed to accommodate the header areas when you save your document.
• Click OK when done adjusting margins
• Save and Exit your document to update it with your changes.

Although you may also adjust the Distance From Edge settings to print header or footer information closer to the edges of your page, we recommend using a minimum 0.50″ settings for those items to ensure that information will print in the “printable” area of the page that most printers allow. Should you adjust it lower and sometimes print to your regular printer, be sure to test print your report to your actual printer to make sure any information isn’t missing due to being in the non-printable area of the paper.

After saving your updated document, preview a report to see your changes in effect.