Sometimes I find that moving the bottom margin up does not have any effect.
I'm moving it up by dragging the bottom blue bit in the vertical bar on the left of the page.
This is particularly frustrating when you want to get some text from the bottom of one page to move to the top of the next, or to get text at the bottom of one column to migrate to the top of the next. I can move the bar right up well above the bottom of the text and the text just stays where it is.


Does anyone have any solutions for me?

Thanks

Normally, changing the footer (or header) margins would affect how much fits on the page... It's hard to tell what happens in this particular document, without looking at it. However, let me suggest a different approach.

If you want to force a paragraph to be in the same paragraph (or column) as the following paragraph, format it as "Keep with next" and "Keep lines together" (Paragraph dialog box).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Now for some strange reason it's working OK! Some glitch, I suppose.
BTW. keeping paras together would not be the solution here because I simply want to shift one or more lines from one column to another to get them pretty much the same length.
Thanks for your help though.

Thanks for the follow-up! You may be interested in Suzanne S. Barnill's article at http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/BottomLine.htm.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Stefan, a bit more news on this now. By chance I was messing with the document and discovered that whether or not the bottom margin position had an effect depended on where the insertion point was placed. My document has two headlines, then a continuous section break, then text in 8 columns. If the insertion point is above the break then I can adjust the page/column length. But if it's in the text (below the break) then I can't.

In a document with multiple sections, dragging margins will affect only the section containing the insertion point, yes.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

But in this case it's the bottom section that can have its margin altered when the insertion point is in the upper section. Shall I send you the document? (Is that possible?)

Well, that sounds correct, because the footer on the page where the section break resides actually belongs to the section preceding the break.

You can send the document to stefanDOTblomATmvpsDOTorg (easily deciphered).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

OK, I have received the document. It has a continuous section break a bit above the middle of the first page, which is actually the only page. When you change the bottom margin, this affects the first section. Temporarily add a page break (or just press Enter repeatedly to get onto the second page); then you can change the margin there, for section 2.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I'm not finding it quite like that. OK, if you push the text below the break to the next page then you can control the page length from there (although if you want it all together on the first page then that's not really a solution), but if you want to control the page without pushing it onto another page, altering the margin while the insertion point is in the top section works - for some reason.

Well, for the first page, modifying the bottom margin (or any margin) works, for the reason I previously stated. If you want to change the margin for subsequent pages, you must add another page, at least temporarily. Once you have adjusted the section 2 margin (on page 2), you can delete the inserted page break, or the added blank paragraphs; the margin for section 2 will be preserved, and you will see it again as soon as text "spills over" to the next page.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

OK. Thanks Stefan.