Word is constantly shifting its orientation over to the right hand side of the page where the comments are if I so much as glance at a comment.

Question

I am severely disabled. Therefore not only don't my hands work properly, but my eyes are not very good and everything is blown up to 150%. That means the comments in my Word documents are invisible on the right hand side margin. I am totally fine with this. If I need to read a comment, I slide over there. The problem is the bug for people who have accessibility problems who do not want word automatically and constantly moving the document back to comments. Every time I'm in the middle of reading some piece of narrative all of a sudden the whole freaking screen moves over and all I can see is comments. I realize this is because the last place I clicked was comments, but that is not an acceptable reason for moving my page around. Making me do extra clicks is harming my hands immeasurably. If I wanna look at comments, I will go over there myself. It is not only incredibly distracting and time-consuming to constantly have to move your pages around because you're moving them against my will, but it is a violation of 508 compliance. You are making my life insanely difficult because I have accessibility issues and there is no reason for it. Nobody I know in my entire 50,000 person company wants the screen moving on its own for no reason. Whoever thought that up is insane and it needs to be fixed -- if it's just an inevitability of your terrible programming, then it still needs to be fixed. And the fact that you have removed feedback from every single element of my Microsoft products is an abomination.

Answer 1

Horizontal scrolling is automatically invoked by macOS based on the Zoom percentage. Word has no control over that behavior. Neither have I seen any System Setting to disable it. However, the only time I see it occur in most programs (including Word) is when explicitly using the Horizontal Scroll Bar, dragging to the edge of the window, or using a 2- or 3-finger swipe on the trackpad [or mouse equivalent].

Since your experience seems to be different please provide the following information:

• Office Version Number as indicated in Word> About Microsoft Word
• macOS Version Number as shown in **> About This Mac**
• Whether using Modern Comments or Legacy Comments
• Any additional descriptive detail re exactly what triggers the horizontal scrolling

Also, please understand that you are not communicating with anyone from Microsoft here. Neither do the contributors have any control over the product Microsoft provides. The forum is hosted by Microsoft but nobody from Microsoft design/development monitors the messages. If there is a suspected issue with the software the best avenue is to use Help> Feedback in the menu bar of the respective program. Alternatively, use this link to the Feedback site where you can post suggestions, feature requests, or complaints: Word · Feedback Don't expect a personal reply but that is the venue read & evaluated by those who can act on it.

Answer 2

Hi Premo, Lora

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum

I’m apologize that you’re being put through an inconvenience experience that adds unnecessary movement

Based on your description, Word is automatically shifting/panning the document view toward the comments area after you’ve interacted with a comment, so while you’re reading in the main text, the viewport “jumps” over to the right to keep the comments pane in view.

Given this, you can try some workaround approaches below to see if it can help you:

1/ Use the Reviewing Pane + All Revisions Inline

In Word, go to Review tab → Tracking group:

1. Show Markup → Balloons → select Show All Revisions Inline
2. Then select Reviewing Pane and choose Vertical or Horizontal

In this configuration, when you create/select a comment, the cursor moves into the Reviewing Pane, but the document itself doesn’t scroll/pan sideways. You can also resize/drag the pane so it sits where it’s easiest on your eyes/hands.

2/ If you’re using “Modern Comments”: switch to Contextual view

Modern comments have two views: Contextual and List.

In List view, when you select a comment, Word highlights the related text and “the page scrolls to show the location” when needed.

To change it:

• Use the Comments button (top right), or
• Review tab → Show Comments drop-down → choose Contextual.

Contextual keeps comments aligned near where you’re working rather than driving navigation from the far-right list.

Hope my answer will help you.

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