1" Margin Too Large at Bottom

[Mike Donoghue]

When using 1" margins, double space, and 12 pt. Times New Roman with widow/orphan control turned off, the last line of text in the body does not actually touch the 1" margin line at the bottom. Instead, I have to change the bottom margin to 0.97". I have attached images showing the difference. Which is correct for formatting a manuscript?

1" margins all around example:

0.97" margin at bottom example:

 

[tinkerdan]

I have never found the margins and double-spacing and font pt influence to be any sort of exact science.

If you are meeting someone's requirements I'd stick with setting the margins as they have them and let the cards fall as they may.

If you are working on something that you will be publishing then you might want to tweak things to fit; though my experience has been that it will never be quite exact throughout a long document.

You also might need to watch how you define the size or location of the headers and footers in relationship to the font used in those. Accidentally putting an extra line in can throw things off.

 

[Mike Donoghue]

I have never found the margins and double-spacing and font pt influence to be any sort of exact science.

If you are meeting someone's requirements I'd stick with setting the margins as they have them and let the cards fall as they may.

If you are working on something that you will be publishing then you might want to tweak things to fit; though my experience has been that it will never be quite exact throughout a long document.

You also might need to watch how you define the size or location of the headers and footers in relationship to the font used in those. Accidentally putting an extra line in can throw things off.

I guess my question is, when agents ask for 1" margins, are they asking for the word document to set to 1" margins, regardless of where the bottom text lands, or do they want the body of the text to actually touch 1" at the bottom?

 

[tinkerdan]

They mostly want a one inch margin; probably don't care if it is occasionally a bit more.