Being naive and not familiar with all the prior work done and conventions decided upon (seriously! newbie uttering silliness here), I do wonder though, where emerges the difficulty in adding a couple of children and attributes to the last child of an element called "body"  within an xml file?

On Monday, November 18, 2013 7:01:19 PM UTC+1, fiddlosopher wrote:

I think I got that far myself.  But remember, the only thing that is
carried over from the reference docx are styles.  So we'd need to do
this in the context of a style...  Can you see how to do that?


+++ CFCF [Nov 18 13 09:41 ]:
>    Update: I just had pandoc generate an empty docx from an empty .txt
>    file, without reference.docx. In this file, when unzipped, document.xml
>    had an empty body element <w:body/>.
>    I then replaced the empty body element with this:
>    <w:body><w:sectPr><w:pgSz w:w="9638" w:h="13606"/><w:pgMar w:top="850"
>    w:right="850" w:bottom="567" w:left="850" w:header="283" w:footer="283"
>    w:gutter="0"/><w:cols w:space="720"/><w:docGrid
>    w:linePitch="360"/></w:sectPr></w:body>
>    ...and rezipped it with docx extension. Voila, custom margins were set.
>    On Monday, November 18, 2013 6:15:55 PM UTC+1, CFCF wrote:
>
>    Have a look at [1]http://officeopenxml.com/WPsectionPgMar.php
>    At the end of document.xml generated in Pandoc then saved from Word
>    2013 with custom margins and paper size I found this:
>    <w:sectPr w:rsidR="00E50FC8" w:rsidSect="00D938EE">
>    <w:pgSz w:w="9638" w:h="13606"/>
>    <w:pgMar w:top="850" w:right="850" w:bottom="567" w:left="850"
>    w:header="283" w:footer="283"w:gutter="0"/>
>    <w:cols w:space="720"/>
>    <w:titlePg/>
>    <w:docGrid w:linePitch="360"/>
>    </w:sectPr>
>    </w:body>
>    All measurements are in twips,i.e. twentieths of a point (?!?).
>     So <w:pgSz w:w="9638" w:h="13606" translates to 170x240mm paper size.
>    On Thursday, October 31, 2013 7:18:53 PM UTC+1, fiddlosopher wrote:
>
>      I'm agreed about its usefulness!  I just haven't been able to figure
>      out yet how to do this in docx.  Again, I'd invite help from any
>      ooxml experts out there.
>      +++ Paul D. Walker [Oct 30 13 01:19 ]:
>      >    This would still be a useful feature.
>      >    On Thursday, October 17, 2013 9:49:27 PM UTC+8, Michael Nestrud
>      wrote:
>      >
>      >    I'd like to second that I would love the ability to set word
>      margins to
>      >    something besides default, either through the reference.docx or
>      other
>      >    means.
>      >    Thanks,
>      >    -Michael
>      >    On Tuesday, February 14, 2012 7:26:36 PM UTC-5, Matt Burton
>      wrote:
>      >
>      >      Good enough then; I'll try to modify my content so that it
>      works
>      >      better with the default styles.  Thanks!
>      >      On Feb 14, 11:25 am, John MacFarlane <fiddlosop...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
>      wrote:
>      >      > You can modify styles, but page margins are not (currently
>      at
>      >      least)
>      >      > in any styles, so changes to them won't persist.  It would
>      be good
>      >      > to make this modifiable, but I haven't had any luck putting
>      page
>      >      > margins in the styles in the reference.docx. Maybe someone
>      with
>      >      more
>      >      > ooxml experience can help.
>      >      >
>      >      > +++ Matt Burton [Feb 13 12 18:25 ]:
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      >
>      >      > > Hello,
>      >      >
>      >      > > Is it possible to set non-default document margins for
>      the docx
>      >      > > writer?  I modified the margins in the Page Layout
>      section of
>      >      > > Microsoft Word, but the settings are not carried over
>      from the
>      >      > > 'reference.docx' file.  Other style settings are copied
>      as
>      >      expected,
>      >      > > but the resulting Word document has standard (1 inch)
>      margins.
>      >      >
>      >      > > Thanks very much,
>      >      > > Matt Burton
>      >      >
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>      >    2. [7]https://groups.google.com/d/
>      msgid/pandoc-discuss/6d37e7c4-1ae5-407b-ae32-1253885d37c2%
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> References
>
>    1. http://officeopenxml.com/WPsectionPgMar.php
>    2. http://groups.google.com/group/pandoc-discuss?hl=en
>    3. https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/6d37e7c4-1ae5-407b-
>    4. http://40googlegroups.com/
>    5. https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out
>    6. http://groups.google.com/group/pandoc-discuss?hl=en
>    7. https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/6d37e7c4-1ae5-407b-ae32-1253885d37c2%40googlegroups.com
>    8. https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out
>    9. https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pandoc-discuss/5cdf6ff1-9117-4025-8833-958e39f82020%40googlegroups.com
>   10. https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out