I have been trying to change margins in KWord without success. I used the menu Format -> Page Layout, changed the numbers in the four Margins boxes and clicked OK, but nothing seemed to happen. Am I missing something?

I am using KWord 2.3.1.

Hmm - I have 2.3.3, and on checking I find that this also behaves as you describe.

You are right that its currently impossible; the feature was for many reasons not added in KOffice2.x yet. Its been added in KOffice master (the development version) so the next version should have it.

Not strictly true; it is true that you may see no visible effect in KWord but, if you save the file and then re-open it in OpenOffice or LibreOffice, you will find that the margin settings you entered that did not appear to take effect have been recognised.

In fact I regularly change the margins in KWord and have found that the changes are preserved even if it is not obvious until after you have saved and re-opened them.

Thanks for clarifying this. I'll add a note about this to the UserBase tutorial.