How to stop Word from continually opening documents to full screen window?

Question

How does one stop Word from opening a document to full screen window rather than the width, etc of the document (or any document) when last saved?

All the notes here, going back in time, seem almost consistently recommend resizing a word document window as desired, saving it, quit Word. Then when opening that, or any other Word file, should open it to the size last saved.

Unfortunately, its the full screen again. Another note suggested insuring both Word and Outlook were not running and doing the same. Same result.

MacBook Pro, M2, 2023

Tahoe 26.5

Microsoft 365 Subscription

Microsoft Word for Mac, version 16.107.4

Answer 1

First of all, update Office. The version you cited [16.107.4] is 2 major updates behind. Version 16.109 is current. That, alone, may resolve the program.

There is no setting in Word to specify the window size or position. Normally, documents do open at the size & position at which they were last saved & closed The one exception [unless changes have been made in System Settings] is if Word is already in Full Screen or Focus View. Those are viewing modes, not document settings. If a document is open in either of those Views, other documents – including new ones – will open in that same View. The UI provides no way to open documents in either of those views otherwise even if the View was in effect when the document was last saved & closed. IOW, documents cannot be saved in Focus or Full Screen View.

Note, however, that windowing operations are owned by the OS & Tahoe has had a number of windowing maladies. It's possible that on has returned in this latest release. If so it will require an update from Apple to provide the remedy.

Also, the view mode being used by one program should have no effect on the viewing mode in others.

Answer 2

On Word for Mac there is no documented setting in the provided material that controls whether each document opens full screen or at the last-used window size. The available Word for Mac guidance in the context only covers crash/performance issues and specific feature toggles (such as Copilot), not window sizing behavior.

Because of that, no supported, documented method can be given here—such as a preference, registry/PLIST reset, or template change—to stop Word from opening documents in a full-screen window on macOS.

---

References:

• Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Word for Mac