How to Make One Page Landscape in Word

You're writing a report in portrait, but you need to fit a wide table or chart on one page. Turn the whole document landscape and everything else looks wrong. The answer: make just that one page landscape.

The trick is section breaks. Orientation applies to a whole section, so the landscape page needs to be in a section of its own. Word can do this for you.

1. Select everything on the page you want to make landscape — the table, chart and any text.
2. Go to the Layout tab.
3. Click Margins > Custom Margins… (this opens Page Setup).
4. Under Orientation, choose Landscape.
5. At the bottom, change Apply to to Selected text.
6. Click OK.

Word puts your selection on a landscape page and automatically adds section breaks before and after it. The rest of the document stays portrait.

Useful if Method 1 doesn't give quite the result you want.

1. Click at the very start of the content you want on the landscape page.
2. Go to Layout > Breaks > Next Page.
3. Click at the very end of that content.
4. Go to Layout > Breaks > Next Page again.
5. Click anywhere inside the content between the two breaks.
6. Go to Layout > Orientation > Landscape.

Only the section you're in changes.

• Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 to show formatting marks. You'll see Section Break (Next Page) markers before and after your landscape page.
• Go to View > Multiple Pages to see portrait and landscape pages side by side.

Each section can have its own headers and footers. Usually you want them to carry on as normal:

1. Double-click the footer on the landscape page.
2. On the Header & Footer tab, make sure Link to Previous is turned on.
3. Do the same for the portrait page after it.

If page numbers restart at 1, go to Insert > Page Number > Format Page Numbers… and choose Continue from previous section.

Note: On a landscape page, the footer runs along the long edge. When printed and bound, it'll appear on the side of the portrait pages. That's normal.

Click in the landscape page and choose Layout > Orientation > Portrait. To remove the extra sections, show formatting marks, click just before each section break and press Delete.

The whole document turned landscape. In Page Setup, Apply to was set to Whole document. Undo (Ctrl + Z) and try again with Selected text.

There's a blank page before or after. Look for an empty paragraph next to one of the section breaks and delete it.

The table still doesn't fit. Select the table, go to Layout (Table Layout) > AutoFit > AutoFit Window, or narrow the page margins in that section only.

Select the content, go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins, choose Landscape and Apply to: Selected text. Word handles the section breaks — you just check the page numbers carry on.