How to Make a Marriage Biodata in Word or on Your Mobile

To make a marriage biodata in Word, copy the format below, paste it into Word or the free Google Docs app, fill in your details, add a photo, check it fits on one A4 page, and save it as a PDF. On a mobile, Google Docs is the easier app. On a computer, Word can line the rows up in the two-column layout of a printed biodata.

Rather not do the layout yourself? A print shop or an online maker (ours is one) can do it for you, and both are at the end.

What a finished biodata looks like

It helps to know what you're aiming for before you start. Many of the biodatas families forward share the same shape:

If you're still collecting your details, start with how to make a marriage biodata, which covers what to write. This guide covers laying it out.

Copy the format first

Each row is a label and a colon, with nothing after it. That's on purpose: on a computer, Word can turn these lines into a table in one step, as long as the details aren't filled in yet.

BIODATA

PERSONAL DETAILS
Name:
Date of Birth:
Age:
Height:
Marital Status:
Religion:
Mother Tongue:
Native Place:
Current City:

EDUCATION & CAREER
Education:
Occupation:
Organisation:
Annual Income:

FAMILY DETAILS
Father:
Mother:
Siblings:
Family Background:

ABOUT ME

PARTNER PREFERENCES
Age:
Education:
Profession:
Location:

CONTACT
Contact Person:
Phone:
Email:

Annual income can be a range, such as ₹9 to 11 lakh a year, or you can delete the row. Under ABOUT ME, write three or four sentences in your own words; how to write the about me section has examples.

Some families add community and horoscope rows. If yours does, copy these too and paste them under FAMILY DETAILS.

COMMUNITY & HOROSCOPE
Community:
Gotra:
Time of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Rashi:
Nakshatra:
Manglik:

The last four come from the kundli, the horoscope worked out from your date, time and place of birth. A gotra is a family lineage, in most families passed down the father's side, and manglik says whether the kundli shows a particular placement of Mars, which some families look at closely. The Hindu biodata guide explains rashi, nakshatra and manglik row by row. Other families use other rows here, such as a sect, a denomination or a got, and the guides for each religion have them.

If you'd rather start from a filled-in sample, the formats for a girl and for a boy, the four worked examples and the second marriage formats paste in the same way, and they work well for the phone steps below. For the Word table, start from the blank format above.

If the Copy button doesn't work, you're probably reading this inside Instagram or Facebook. Open this page in Chrome and try again.

On your mobile: Google Docs, step by step

Google Docs is free, and it uses the Google account that's already on your phone. If it isn't installed, get it from the Play Store, or the App Store on an iPhone.

1. Open Google Docs and tap + to start a new document.
2. Long-press on the page and tap Paste. If the keyboard doesn't come up, tap the pencil first.
3. Set the page to A4: tap ⋮, then Page setup, then Paper size, and choose A4.
4. Fill in each row. Tap just after the colon, type a space, then your detail. Check names and towns as you go, because autocorrect likes to change them.
5. Select BIODATA, tap the A at the top, and make it bold, bigger and centred. Make each section heading bold too.
6. Crop your photo in your phone's gallery first, so it's your face and shoulders. Then tap where it should go in the document, tap +, then Image, and pick it. Drag a corner to resize it, never a side, or it'll stretch.
7. Tap ⋮ and switch on Print layout, so you can see where the page ends. Trim until everything fits on one page.
8. Give the document your name. A new one is called "Untitled document", and the PDF takes the same name.
9. Tap ⋮, then Share & export, then Send a copy, choose PDF, and send it to yourself first.
10. Open the PDF on your phone and read it once the way a stranger would, before it goes to anyone else.

There's no Save button: Docs saves as you go, and the document stays in your account for the next change. The Word app has the same options under its own menus.

You can insert a table on a phone, but then you'd be typing every detail into its own cell. On a mobile, bold labels with the details after them are the practical layout.

On a computer: MS Word, with the rows lined up

Word can turn the pasted lines into a neat two-column table, which is the layout most printed biodatas use. Make the table before you fill anything in.

1. Paste the format into a blank document.
2. Set the page: Layout, then Size, then A4.
3. Select everything (Ctrl+A), and on the Home tab open Line and Paragraph Spacing. Choose 1.0, then open it again and choose Remove Space After Paragraph. Word's extra space after each line is the usual reason a biodata spills onto a second page.
4. Pick one plain font for the whole page, such as Calibri or Arial, at 11 or 12 point.
5. Select from PERSONAL DETAILS down to the last row of FAMILY DETAILS (include the community and horoscope rows if you added them). Go to Insert, then Table, then Convert Text to Table. Under Separate text at, choose Other, type a colon in the box, check it shows 2 columns, and click OK. Then do the same for everything from PARTNER PREFERENCES to the end.
6. Click inside a table, open Table Design, then Borders, and choose No Border. If faint dashed lines still show, those are gridlines. They're only on screen and don't print.
7. Drag the line between the two columns to the left, so the label column is only as wide as the longest label, and make the labels bold.
8. Fill in your details in the right-hand column. To remove a row you don't need, click in it and choose Layout, then Delete, then Delete Rows. The Delete key only empties it.
9. Make BIODATA bold, 18 to 20 point, and centred.
10. Add the photo with Insert, then Pictures. With it selected, open Picture Format, click the arrow under Crop, choose Aspect Ratio, then 3:4, and click Crop again to finish. Set its height to 4.5 cm in the size box, then choose Wrap Text, then Square, and drag it to the top right.
11. If the table jumps around the photo, choose Wrap Text, then In Front of Text instead, drag the photo to the top right, and drag the table's right edge in until the rows end before the photo.
12. For a border, go to Design, then Page Borders, choose Box and a thin line.
13. Check the bar at the bottom of the window says Page 1 of 1. If it doesn't, Layout, then Margins, then Narrow usually brings it back.
14. Go to File, then Save As, pick PDF as the file type, and save it under your name. Keep the Word file too, for the next change.

If a row splits into three cells, a detail with a colon in it, like a birth time of 05:20, was typed in before the table was made. Make the table first, then fill it in.

Lining up the colons too

Some families like a colon between the label and the answer, lined up down the page. Do this in place of step 5, on the same selection:

1. Press Ctrl+H. Type a colon in Find what and #:# in Replace with, then click Replace All. If Word asks whether to search the rest of the document, click No.
2. Convert the text to a table as in step 5, but type # in the Other box. You'll get three columns: the label, the colon and an empty one for your answer.
3. Drag the middle column narrow, and carry on from step 6.

If you only have Google Docs on a computer

Follow the phone steps in a browser. Paste, make the title and headings bold, set the page with File, then Page setup, then A4, and get the PDF from File, then Download, then PDF document.

Adding a line or a picture at the top

The title. BIODATA is the most common. Some families write MARRIAGE BIODATA, or put your name there instead, in large bold with one line under it for your age, height, work and city, the way the formats without a photo open.

A line above the title. Many families put a short line or a symbol at the very top, and many don't. What goes there depends on the family, and our guides list the common ones for Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Muslim and Sikh biodatas.

To type a symbol in Word, type its code and press Alt+X: 0950 gives ॐ, 0965 gives ॥ and 0A74 gives ੴ. In Google Docs, use Insert, then Special characters, and search for it. If the line shows up as empty boxes, the font has no letters for that script. Select the line and pick one that does, such as Nirmala UI on a Windows computer.

A picture above the title. Keep it small, about 2 to 2.5 cm, centred and in line with the text, so it doesn't push the rest of the page around.

Typing it in Hindi, Marathi or Gujarati

On a phone, add the language to your keyboard in its settings, and you can type it straight into Docs. The Hindi format guide has the steps from phone to PDF and a blank Hindi format to copy.

If your laptop can't type the script, write those lines on your phone in Google Docs and open the same document on the laptop. Docs keeps it in your account, so you can start on one and finish on the other. Whichever language you use, keep the headings all in that one language.

Check these before you send or print it

• It fits on one A4 page.
• The photo isn't stretched, and it's the original from your camera, not one that came through a WhatsApp forward.
• No row has split into three cells.
• The line at the top, if you have one, shows letters, not boxes.
• One font all the way through.
• The PDF has your name, not "Untitled document".
• You've opened the PDF on your own phone.

If you're printing copies to hand over, give the shop the PDF rather than the Word file, so it prints exactly the way you checked it. Print one test copy before you print twenty, and keep the text dark, so it still reads when someone photocopies it in black and white.

When it's ready to go, sending it on WhatsApp as a document keeps it at full quality.

If you'd rather someone else did the layout

• A print or DTP shop. A shop that does typing and printing (DTP, short for desktop publishing) can lay it out for you, with a border or a picture at the top if you want one. Send them your details typed out in the format above, so nothing gets retyped from handwriting. Check every name and date on their draft, and ask for the file they made it in, Word if possible, as well as the PDF.
• An online biodata maker. Ours, Marriage Profile, is a step-by-step form that shows the biodata as you fill it in (on a phone, tap Preview). You pick one of eight designs, three of them free, and get a link that stays the same when you edit, plus a PDF on every plan. Worth knowing first: it needs a photo before you can publish, so it isn't the way to make one without a photo. It has no place for a line at the top, and the PDF has one layout whichever design you choose. On the free plan every PDF page carries a "Created with marriageprofile.in" footer, and the number of edits depends on your plan. The sample profile shows what a finished one looks like.