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Word Zoom - How to set default zoom level for opening documents (Mac)

Anonymous
2025-01-07T18:40:13+00:00

Objective: set default zoom for opening documents at 130%.
This used to work fine; sometimes it will work correctly for a few weeks.
Now it opens at 77% (or other %); I have to click zoom+ 6 times every time I open a doc.
Word randomly changes to a zoom percentage then stays there for a random period, then changes again.
This is very annoying.
This should be a setting under preferences (not there).
Word does not save to the most recently selected & saved zoom ratio.
Quitting Word / restarting the computer has no effect.
I have tried many things to try to fix this, and have read many posts and spend significant time; with no solution.

MS Word 16.92 (Office 365 subscription up-to-date as of Jan 2025), MacOS Sonoma 14.6

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | MacOS

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  1. Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 435K Reputation points
    2025-01-19T15:48:33+00:00

    No, I don't work for Microsoft & never have. I've only been using, selling & training on Microsoft products for about 30 years.

    There is no such setting or preference in the program for anything even remotely related for that purpose. The only option is the programmatic approach such as the one provided by Jim Gordon at the beginning of this thread. Accommodating user flexibility is why the software supports the use of VBA. Extensibility is one of the strengths of the Office products.

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  1. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-01-18T03:05:45+00:00

    I think the expected behavior is to open at the same zoom as the most recently SAVED version of the file, not the most recently closed. Changing the zoom setting without making other changes does not trigger the dialog that asks you to save or not save before closing.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-01-15T15:43:48+00:00

    Why should we have to make a complex macro? The previous Word for Mac opened every new doc the way it was closed. As a writer, I always have zoom set at 170, the navigation sidebar open, and the document set at a certain size. On the old version, every new doc opened the way the last one closed.

    Why was this functionality removed? Why is there not an option in settings to have new documents open as the last one closed?

    Now like the writer of this thread, every time I open a doc, I have to change the zoom (scroll, 2 clicks plus type 3 numbers) (the slider on the bottom right is useless because you can't easily set the desired zoom) and open the sidebar (scroll, drop down two moves).

    Lots of extra work was created for this new version. This reminds me of the apple v pc ads. They add lots of new features that many people never use. But things that everyone use multiple times per day are removed and replaced with annoying extra, time consuming work.

    Microsoft has been aware of this problem for years, but doesn't fix it. This has been a complaint on many threads, but was never addressed. Why is this company still in business?

    The priority should be fixing things that every user uses all the time. Opening a document is one of them. Get the basics right before adding fancy features. If I could use the old version of Word for Mac, I would.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-01-18T12:53:25+00:00

    Thanks for your reply. That's how it used to work on the old Word for Mac. Now as long as I have a document opened at 170% zoom, if I open a new one, it opens at 170%. But if I save and close the document at 170%, then reopen it, it reopens at 100%, even when I don't quit out of Word.

    As with the old Word, the default should be to open the document the way it was closed (i.e. zoom, size, sidebar, etc). Or there should be an option in settings to open as closed.

    this is an issue that affects every user every time they use Word. It's been a problem for several years. It's incomprehensible why it wasn't fixed long ago.

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  4. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-01-07T18:49:00+00:00

    You'll need to make a macro for this. Depending on how robust you want to make the macro this could be fairly simple or very complex.

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/extensibility-with-vba-objective-c-and-other/17abc248-836f-4bab-94fc-99a6f600be01

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