Margins, fonts, and line spacing look like small details, but they’re usually the very first things a graduate school’s formatting review checks — often with an automated or semi-automated check before a human even reads a page of content. Getting these three settings right, and keeping them consistent from the title page to the last appendix, avoids one of the most common reasons a thesis gets sent back for revision. This post goes deeper into these three settings specifically; for the full range of formatting rules committees check, see our thesis formatting checklist.
Margins
- The most common baseline is 1 inch (2.54 cm) on the top, bottom, and right edges of every page.
- Many universities require a wider left margin — often 1.5 inches — to leave room for binding, especially for printed and bound copies held in a university library.
- Margins need to be set consistently for the entire document, including landscape-oriented pages (common for wide tables or figures), where the binding-side margin can end up on a different edge.
- Check margins again after exporting to PDF — some export settings can shift margins slightly, even when the Word document itself is correct.
- Header and footer content (page numbers, running titles) should sit within the margin area your university specifies, not spill closer to the page edge than allowed.
Fonts
- Times New Roman, 12pt and Arial, 11pt are the two most commonly required combinations, though some departments allow a short list of approved alternatives (Calibri, Cambria, Garamond).
- Whatever font you choose, it needs to be used consistently for all body text — mixing fonts between chapters (often from copy-pasting content from different documents) is one of the most common and most visible formatting errors.
- Footnotes, captions, and headers/footers are sometimes allowed a smaller size (commonly 10pt) — check whether your guide specifies this, since not every institution does.
- Embed fonts when exporting to PDF if your university requests it, so the document displays identically on every computer that opens it, not just yours — in Word, this is under File → Options → Save → “Embed fonts in the file.”
- Code, mathematical notation, or non-Latin scripts sometimes require a different, specified font for readability — check whether your department allows an exception for these specific elements.
Line Spacing
- Double-spacing is the traditional standard for the main body text of a thesis or dissertation.
- Some departments allow 1.5 spacing instead — always confirm rather than assuming.
- Several elements are often single-spaced even within a double-spaced document: block quotations, footnotes, table content, figure captions, and sometimes the bibliography. This mixed-spacing convention is one of the easiest details to overlook.
- Check spacing “before” and “after” paragraph settings too, not just line spacing — inconsistent paragraph spacing between sections is a common giveaway that a document was assembled from multiple source files.
- Chapter titles and major headings sometimes have specific spacing requirements above and below them (for example, a required blank line or set point size of space) — check this separately from body text spacing.
How to Apply These Consistently in Word
Rather than manually setting margins, fonts, and spacing section by section, build them into your document’s base Normal style and heading styles from the start:
- Set your page margins once, in Layout → Margins → Custom Margins, applied to the whole document
- Modify the Normal style (right-click “Normal” in the Styles gallery → Modify) to set your required font, size, and line spacing as the default for all body text
- Use Word’s built-in heading styles for chapter titles and section headings, rather than manually formatting each one — this also keeps them consistent if your university requires a different font or size for headings
- If you’re combining chapters written as separate files, paste using “Keep Text Only” or “Merge Formatting” rather than “Keep Source Formatting,” so incoming text picks up your document’s existing styles instead of carrying over whatever formatting it had in the source file
Checking Your Work Before Submission
A quick way to catch inconsistencies across a long document: use Word’s Find and Replace with formatting options (Find → More → Format) to search for any text that doesn’t match your required font or size — this surfaces stray formatting from pasted content far faster than scrolling through every page manually.
Quick Checklist
- ☐ Margins match your university’s exact requirements, including the binding-side margin if specified
- ☐ One font is used consistently throughout the body text
- ☐ Line spacing matches the requirement, with single-spaced exceptions applied correctly (quotes, footnotes, tables)
- ☐ Settings double-checked in the final exported PDF, not just the Word file
- ☐ Headers, footers, and page numbers sit within the required margin area
Frequently Asked Questions
What if different chapters were written by co-authors using different default fonts? Standardize everyone’s chapters against one shared template before combining them, and do a final formatting pass on the merged document rather than assuming individually formatted chapters will match.
Do these settings apply to the appendices too? Generally yes, though some universities allow appendices (especially reproduced instruments or questionnaires) to keep their original formatting — check your specific guide.
Checking every chapter of a long thesis against these settings by hand takes real time, especially if the document was written and edited over many months. Our thesis formatting service reviews and corrects margins, fonts, spacing, and every other formatting detail your university requires. Get in touch if you’d like a formatting check before you submit.