Thesis Formatting: Different Margins for different pages!?!

[Confused Grad Student]

Ok. I have to format my thesis for turning it into the graduate school.
They are VERY particular about margins, which must be 2" on the first page of
each chapter, and 2" on the cover page, Then 1" for the remaining pages.

How do I format the margins differently for different pages?? I Can get it
to 2" from the top on the first two pages, but then the page break does not
work going from the 2nd to third pages!! HELP!!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

How interesting. What insanity.

For the cover page--use a Next Page Section Break between the cover page and
the next page, then set margins for only that section. But you don't really
want a Next Page Section Break in the middle of a stream of text if you can
avoid it.

Which margins need to be 2" on the first page of each chapter? If just the
top and bottom margins, you can use a Different First Page Header and put
extra space in it.

If side margins also, you could manually add indentation to the text on the
first page of the each chapter. Maybe, I'm less sure about that one.

These are two very useful links for thesis-type formatting questions:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NumberingFrontMatter.htm
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/HeaderFooter.htm

Which would explain most of how to do what I suggested. However, others may
come along with better suggestions.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm guessing it's just the top margin, which is reasonable. Although I do
use Next Page breaks between chapters in books, I don't actually change the
top margin (by adding space to the First Page Header). I usually use a
Chapter Number or Chapter Title (whichever comes first) style with enough
Space Before to drop it the desired amount. In some cases where the depth of
the chapter number and title and any epigraph that may follow will vary, I
put the whole thing in a single (borderless) table cell set to an exact
height so that the first line of Body Text (which will start below the
table) will appear at the same point on the first page of each chapter.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

If just the top margin, totally reasonable. I assumed differently, since it
never crossed my mind that anybody *wouldn't* start a chapter lower down on
the page, thus in my world a request for a 2in top margin on the first page
of a chapter would be moot. But I don't know what books in any other
field look like.

My thesis czars were actually quite sane--the main rules were about ensuring
nothing got chopped when they trimmed the pages after binding, so they whip
out a ruler and measure the margins. Otherwise fairly flexible.

DM

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Back in the Dark Ages when I wrote my thesis, the school bookstore sold the
approved thesis paper, which had a No Copy Blue border creating margins of
1.25" top and left, 1" bottom and right. The page number (top right) was
typed outside this border, but if any other character extended beyond the
border, the thesis (or at least that page) would be rejected. Luckily, since
I was not using a correcting typewriter (and was a terrible typist even
then), the paper was Corrasable Bond. I was using an IBM Selectric, with
several typeballs, stopping to change balls for italics and Greek. It was a
very tedious 260-odd pages!