5 inches means that the footer will appear a half-inch from the bottom of the page. Note that this setting specifies how far the footer should appear from the bottom edge of your printed page. The setting you want to pay attention to here is the Footer setting.
The Layout tab of the Page Setup dialog box. Now display the Layout tab of the dialog box. If the Bottom setting is 1 inch, then Word makes sure that nothing in the body of your text extends into the one-inch of space at the bottom of the printed page. This is where you set your bottom margin for the page. Note the settings in the Margins area, particularly the Bottom setting.
The Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box. Start by displaying the Page Layout tab of the ribbon and then clicking the small icon at the bottom-right of the Page Setup group. This setting determines the margins for the main body of text on each page of your document. The first setting is your actual page margin setting. There are actually two-and possibly six-settings at play when Word lays out your text near the bottom of a page. She's unclear on how to do this in Word, so is looking for a bit of direction. Mindy would like to decrease the space that appears between the last line of text on a page and the common text (document title, date, page number, etc.) that appears in her page's footer.
