Printing Very Large Paper Sizes

Word allows you to print on a wide variety of paper sizes. You cannot use an unlimited paper size, however. For instance, it does very little good to try printing a poster-size document on a plotter, simply because Word won't support documents that large.

Word is hard-coded to permit document widths and heights as small as .1 inches and as large as 22 inches. Thus, the largest page area you can define in Word is 22 inches by 22 inches. This is an absolute limit, as described in the following Knowledge Base articles:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=168804
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211489

Even though these Knowledge Base articles apply to Word 97 through Word 2003, the same page limits also apply to Word 2007. If you need to print to larger paper, then you will need to use a different program, such as a desktop publishing program.

There is one other caveat to keep in mind, however. The paper size to which you can print may also be limited in some way by your printer driver. For instance, if your printer driver will only handle paper up to 18 inches in width, then it won't matter that Word can handle up to 22-inch wide paper. If you find that your printer driver is limiting what you can print, you should check with the manufacturer to see if a newer printer driver is available.