How to Make Only One Page Landscape in Microsoft Word

While working on files in Microsoft Word you may come across problems so specific you wouldn’t consider them until they’re staring you in the face. And one of those problems might be how to make only one page landscape in Microsoft Word.

Don’t worry, though. This article will be your guide to getting it done.

How to Make Only One Page Landscape in Microsoft Word

Your standard Microsoft Word document has its pages formatted to Portrait mode by default. Changing that orientation to landscape is pretty straightforward and can be done via the “Orientation” button in the Layout tab. Unfortunately, this affects the entire document.

Word isn’t so complicated as to leave you without a solution though, and there are two good ways to solve the problem, depending on how many pages are in your document and where you want a page rotated. Here they are:

Using Section Breaks

All Word documents are divided into sections. Using a different heading or typing a new paragraph both qualify as sections. To create a single Landscape page, you’ll need to create a self-contained section for the page you want to rotate.

Word hides the visibility of section indicators by default (a reverse “P” or paragraph symbol), but they can be revealed quite easily:

1. Under the Home Tab, click the “Show/Hide Sections” icon.

2. Your sections will now be visible.

With these visible, it’s time to create a Section Break:

1. To create the start of the section, you’ll need to go to the previous page and create a break. Click the last paragraph before the end of the page.

2. In the Layout Tab, click the “Breaks” button and choose “Next Page” under Section Breaks.

3. You should see “Section Break (Next Page)” which marks the beginning of the break.

4. Go to the end of the next page and do the same to create another section break.

5. With your desired page isolated, click anywhere on it and choose “Landscape” from the “Orientation” button. Your single page should then become a landscape.

If you’d like all pages that follow a specific page in landscape mode, then simply don’t create a second section break. On the other hand, if you’d like to convert multiple non-sequential pages to Landscape, then simply create section breaks on the pages before and at the end of your desired pages.

Using Page Setup

While the above method offers amazing customizability and control, creating multiple section breaks can seem daunting. Page Setup offers a different way to rotate individual pages. Here’s what to do:

1. Select the text (and any images or tables) on the entire page you wish to rotate.

2. In the Layout tab, click the arrow at the bottom right of the “Page Setup” subgroup.

3. A new window will open. Choose the “Landscape” option under the “Orientation” subgroup.

4. To ensure the rotation applies only to the selection, choose “Selected Text” from the “Apply To” option.

5. Click “OK” to confirm. Your page will now be rotated.

When rotating a selection, you may find some text can’t fit and runs into another Landscape page. Simply change the font size or line spacing to fix this.