Word treats the long text as a single word and wraps it to the next line, leaving a large gap at the right margin in the preceding line. It's ugly and I see it a lot.
I can tell when users upgrade to a new wide screen monitor because they ask how to set the margins in email. Composing an email on a wide screen with windows maximized is not the best experience because lines of text are very long.
It's more comfortable to read and compose email when the text is only about 6 inches wide. Rather than resizing the window, users decide that moving the margin is the better idea and it's very easy to do but adjusting the margins using the ruler. Then users discover unintended consequences. I used the ruler to adjust the margins but when my boss printed out the email, the text printed in a narrow column and used 13 pages. The problem is not limited to printed email. Recipients who open messages in smaller windows or who use smaller monitors may also see a (badly) formatted message in a narrow column. Fortunately, the margin setting is ignored by the reading pane.
![Wraps Wraps](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125383225/338011138.jpg)
When you adjust the right margin, you aren't making the page a specific width, you are indenting the right edge by a specific amount. If the page is 12 inches wide and you set the right margin to 6 inches, then you are left with 6 inches of space to type in. However, when the overall page width is 8 inches wide, you're left with just 2 inches when the margin is set to 6 inches, resulting in a narrow column of text in printouts or when the message is opened in a smaller window. Recommended setting: keep the right margin triangle at or very near the right edge of the page (identified by red arrow).
As set in this screenshot, the right margin is approximately 200 pts. If the recipient opens the message in a window 500 pts wide, the message would be indented 200 pts from the right edge. Outlook doesn't have an option to set the width of a message - it uses the full width of the message window and wraps text in the window as needed. Trying to force line lengths using margins or the Enter key to break lines only results in readability problems for the recipient. It's better to adjust the width of the compose window if you need to make the lines shorter and easier to read while composing messages.
Check or adjust the margins To check or adjust the margins in Outlook 2010 and up, you need to look at the Paragraph settings and Page Setup. Both the Left and Right Indentation should be set to 0 (zero). On the Format tab, click the Expander icon to open the Paragraph dialog. (If the ruler is visible, you can point to the indentation triangles and double click to open the dialog instead.) The Left and Right Indentations should be set to zero. If you want to use indentation, keep it very small.
Do not use indentation or margins to make line wrap on wide screen monitors while you are composing them; this will affect the margins and format on the message the recipient receives. Adjust the width of the compose message form instead. If you change the values, click the Set as Default button at the bottom of the dialog, then choose All documents based on NormalEmail.dotm template and click OK to commit the changes.
If using Outlook 2016, you can add the Ruler toggle button to the Quick Access Toolbar. That should be in Outlook 2013 too, will need to check in older versions. Margins are not typically used in Email, so there isn't a margin command to load the dialog directly. If you need to set margins, show the ruler then click the gray square on the right end of the ruler. Indentation is set in Paragraph options - Format text tab, click the little expander icon in the lower right of the Paragraph section. Look on the indents and spacing tab.