Quick Guide to setting Aus MS Word DOC file defaults

The most common default installation properties for a document after installing MS Word are:
US-letter page size instead of A4, with humongous margins and US spelling not Australian English.
This looks pretty amateurish to recipients if you send them documents still in this mode (unless they are in the US).

To be fair, on a PC, Word gets its defaults from the Windows "Region" settings when it is installed, so if you (or whoever set up the PC) have not localised your Windows settings, then it is not really Word's fault. To set the Windows Region:
In Windows XP go to Control Panel > Regional and Language Settings > Regional Options to choose your preferred language and region combination.  There are 13 choices for English alone. Also change the 'Location' setting at the bottom of the dialog box. If you don't like the default settings for formatting of numbers, currency, date or time click on the Customize button after choosing the closest applicable standard. Note that these settings are separate from the Windows time zone configuration (Control Panel > Date & Time > Time Zone).

Here is how you change the Word defaults, in most versions on a PC, which the majority of users will have.
Most Mac versions are fairly similar, but instead of window tabs you might need to select an option in a box to bring up those settings, also to select "Default", and instead of Tools>Options select Word>Preferences.

Start Word from its startup icon, with only a fresh document (ie Document 1 on startup).

• In menu: Tools > Options > General tab, select if you prefer mm, cm or Inches for display of measurements on the page (and adjust figures below as suits, though you can still enter a value with one unit and it will convert to your selected one).
• In menu: File > Page Setup
  On margins tab set them to say 2.5cm (1") for L&R and either 2cm or 2.5cm for Top&Bottom (2 is usually enough), these are good average margins but use what works for you.
  Depending on your printer, increasing the Header/Footer on Layout tab to 1.5 cm or more may help too (but keep the Top/Bottom margin about 0.5cm more than this).
  On Paper Size tab, select "A4" in paper size box. ("A4 small" if offered on Macs, is a good size choice to cover all types of printers).
  Hit the "Default" box and confirm that it will set these for all new docs,
  then hit "OK".
• Back at the blank page, in menu: Edit > Select All
  then Tools > Language > Set Language and select "English (Australia)" in the list
  hit the "Default" button and confirm again,
  then hit "OK".
• Exit word, don't save the file Document1, 
  and if it asks if you want to save changes to the global "Normal.dot" template, select Yes.  

Note: No existing files will be changed by this, so to bring old files into line you have to repeat these steps (except you don't need to use the Default buttons now) with each file loaded, and check if the layout was affected.

Every new file started from a normal blank page will have these Aus defaults from now on.
You can change the settings for any individual file if something different is needed, but unless you hit the "Default" button the defaults for a new file will remain set like this.

Suggestion: One thing that also annoys recipients, but is very easy to do, is to leave a series of blank lines at the bottom of the file, just enough to trigger printing of an extra but quite unnecessary page. Check this and delete any in your files.