How to Automatically Shrink a Word Document By One Page

Have you ever written a Microsoft Word document and found that your last page contains just a few sentences and a bunch of white space? Instead of editing your work down, you can try a nifty hidden feature in Word that might solve the problem.

The “Shrink One Page” command works by automatically sizing down your text and adjusting margins to shrink your document just enough. If you’re working on a document (like a school essay) where you must use a required font or margin size, this command probably won’t work well for you. But in other circumstances, it’s worth giving a try. While you can undo the command if things don’t look right, we’d encourage you to save your document first to be on the safe side.

The “Shrink One Page” command isn’t on the Ribbon by default, so you’ll need to add it. The easiest way to do this is to add it to your Quick Access Toolbar. That’s the little toolbar at the top left of your window with the Save and Undo command.

Go ahead and click the down arrow at the far right of the Quick Access Toolbar.

On the drop-down menu, click the “More Commands” option.

In the Word Options window, the “Quick Access Toolbar” category should already be selected on the left. On the right, click the “Choose Commands From” drop-down menu and select the “All Commands” option.

On the long list of commands on the left, scroll down and select the “Shrink One Page” command. Click the “Add” button to add it to the list of commands shown on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Click “OK” when you’re done.

You’ll now find the “Shrink One Page” button on your Word ribbon. Click it to shrink your document by one page.

Keep in mind that because Word is resizing fonts and margins, using this command can cause formatting issues—especially if you have images or other illustrations already positioned where you want them. Before saving your document, check it to make sure that no weird errors occurred during the process. If there are, you can always click the undo button to remove the changes.