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Iam having trouble making my text evenly distribute over the entire width of the page

\oddsidemargin -0.3in
\evensidemargin -0.3in
\textwidth 7.3in
\textheight 9in

\begin{multicols}{2}

my text

\end{multicols}

my right side margin is larger than left margin.

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

\oddsidemargin is used on odd numbered pages and \evensidemargin is used on even numbered pages; neither of those is directly setting the right margin. To center your text with a \textwidth equal to 7.3 inches on paper that's 8.5inches wide, you should use

\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-0.4in}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{-0.4in}
\setlength{\textwidth}{7.3in}

That sets the left margin to be 1 inch minus 0.4 inches, which is 0.6 inches. That 0.6 inches plus 7.3 inches for text leaves you a right margin of 0.6 inches.

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i did this but the text doesnt seem to stretch to the width ?how can i change the column text width as well ? – user5535 Jun 12 '11 at 6:05
@user5535: I just tested it, using only \documentclass{article}, followed by those setlength commands, followed by \begin{document}, followed by paragraphs of text, followed by \end{document}; it works for me. If it doesn't seem centered to you, perhaps try latex testpage.tex to print a testpage and see if that comes out centered. – Phil Hirschhorn Jun 12 '11 at 23:26

Margins are best managed with geometry

\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{letterpaper,textwidth=7.3in,hmarginratio=1:1,
  textheight=9in,vmarginratio=1:1,heightrounded}
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