Change distance between page number and bottom edge of page

Question

I am trying to make my page numbers .75in from the bottom of the page. Currently they are about .5in or so.

I think \usepackage{fancyhdr} will work but what is the option to change this without changing anything else in the document?

Answer 1

Add the following code by the end of your document header (just before \begin{document}). The calc package allows arithmetics with lengths and the \setlength just modifies \footskip to the desired value:

\usepackage{calc}
\setlength{\footskip}{\paperheight
  -(1in+\voffset+\topmargin+\headheight+\headsep+\textheight)
  -0.75in}

For more details on paper layouts see e.g. The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX2e, section Page Layout.

Answer 2

\usepackage[margin=1in,footskip=.25in]{geometry} should do the job.