How To Make Only One Page Landscape in Microsoft Word

Cassandra McBride November 20, 2022

Whenever you use Microsoft Word to write something, some content looks better using the “Landscape” orientation, and it’s not difficult to set the entire document to follow that format. However, what happens if you only need one page to be landscape rather than the whole thing?

How To Make Only One Page Landscape in Microsoft Word

For instance, you might have a document with several pages of standard text and one page with a table full of many columns. The table could benefit from the landscape orientation. In contrast, the rest of the text requires the default orientation. Of course, a table is just an example, and this can apply to any on-page content.

Whatever your particular case, the good news is that you can switch the orientation of individual pages within a Word document. The process requires you to use a formatting feature called “Section Breaks.” There are two ways to do this, and this article provides an easy-to-follow guide for both options.

Method 1: Manually Inserting Section Breaks in MS Word

To explain this method, let’s assume you have a four-page document and only want the second page to have the landscape orientation.

Start by clicking the beginning of page two – the blinking cursor should be in the top-left corner of that page (as much as the margins allow).
Now, click the “Layout” tab in the ribbon menu in the upper-left part of your screen. Next, click the “Breaks” icon – it looks like two pages with a bit of space between them.
In the new submenu that appears. select “Next Page.” You’ve now created the first section break in your document.
The next step also takes place in the “Layout” tab. However, you now need to click the “Orientation” icon and select “Landscape.”
You will now see a significant change in your document—everything after the section break you’ve made (meaning pages two, three, and four) feature the landscape orientation. The result is a step in the right direction, but it’s not what you want. You only require the second page to appear in landscape mode.
So, we need to create one more section break. Click the beginning of the third page and follow the same procedure to insert another section break. Then, go to the “Orientation” menu again, but this time change it back to “Portrait” – this is the last step you need to take.
You will now see that the second page of your document has the landscape orientation, while everything else is portrait. What we’ve done here is isolate page two with the use of section breaks. That way, the landscape orientation only applies to this page and not the whole document.
If you want a better look at where your section breaks are, you need to enable the option to show formatting marks. To do this, go to the “Home” tab and find the “pilcrow” symbol in the “Paragraph” section – it looks a bit like a reverse P/lowercase q.
Click on it, and Word will display all formatting marks, including section breaks. You will now see exactly where each section begins and ends.

Method 2: Without Manually Inserting Section Breaks

The second method might be a bit easier as you don’t need to insert the section breaks yourself – you can let Word do that.

Start by using selecting/highlighting the portion of the text that you want to have displayed in landscape orientation.
While the text appears highlighted, go to the “Layout” tab and look at the “Page Setup” section—this is the same as with the previous method. However, you now need to click the “Launcher icon” (expanding dialog box) in the bottom-right corner of the “Page Setup group tab,” which opens the full “Page Setup” menu.
Look under “Orientation” and select “Landscape.” Now, look at the bottom of this box, and you’ll see a submenu labeled “Apply to.” Click the little arrow and choose “Selected text.” Then, just hit OK.
You will now see that Word has put the section you’ve highlighted onto a separate page and applied the landscape orientation only to it.

Mixing the Two Page Orientations in MS Word is Easy

Combining the portrait and landscape orientations is a great way to accommodate different types of content within the same Word document without squeezing the graphs or large images or cutting them off on the right side. As you can see, you’ll need to dig through a few menus to achieve the task, but the process is easy to do.

In the end, this feature probably won’t be something you’ll use too often in Microsoft Office/Word, but it can be a very neat trick when the situation calls for it.

FAQs: Landscaping Only One Page in MS Word

How do I make just one page landscaped on a Mac?

Most macOS users often find Microsoft Word tutorials challenging to follow because the interface between an Apple computer and a PC is vastly different. Fortunately, all of the steps above apply to Mac computers as well.

What does landscape mean?

In terms of documents, the landscape option means that your pages get turned sideways, which makes them appear wider rather than taller, whereas portrait means the page appears longer rather than wider. The landscape option is the perfect solution for fitting graphs in a Word document or when you need to include large images.