AutoOpen and ActiveWindow.View.DisplayPageBoundaries in Microsoft 365 Word

Question

I would like all documents I re-open to hide the white space (including headers and footers) between pages. This occurs if I open a document and double-click the white space between pages. It works if I set "ActiveWindow.View.DisplayPageBoundaries = False" in a macro running on an open document and stays that way until I save the document. More to the point, it works (for a few seconds) if I place "ActiveWindow.View.DisplayPageBoundaries = False" into the AutoOpen macro in Normal.dot.

... but immediately after the AutoOpen macro finishes, Word displays the document without the white space, the screen refreshes and is then re-displayed WITH the white space. I can see using the Immediate window that DisplayPageBoundaries becomes True. Is there a way to get DisplayPageBoundaries = False to stick if it's set in the AutoOpen subroutine?

Answer 1

I had the same question.

Setting "ActiveWindow.View.DisplayPageBoundaries = False" in AutoOpen() works and sticks if you open a document from within Word (when the Word App is already loaded). It works for a few seconds but does NOT stick, as you point out, ... if Word is spawned by the OS when you double-click on a Word Doc and the Word App isn't previously loaded.

It appears to me that Word resets this attribute after it closes out AutoOpen. Here is an inelegant workaround: schedule another Macro to set this attribute a couple of seconds after AutoOpen closes:

Sub AutoOpen()

    Dim ScheduledTime As Double
    Dim SpawnedSub As String
    
    ScheduledTime = Now + TimeSerial(0, 0, 2)
    SpawnedSub = "TurnOffDisplayPageBoundaries"
    Application.OnTime ScheduledTime, SpawnedSub
        
End Sub

Public Sub TurnOffDisplayPageBoundaries()
    
   ' Hide white space between pages by default.
    With ActiveWindow.View
        .Type = wdPrintView
        .DisplayPageBoundaries = False
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    
End Sub

Answer 2

[Note: The tool displaying this question is not working correctly. The question asked above, "I would like all documents I re-open to hide the white space...", was written by somebody else on May 2, 2022. My response below is created on Feb 27, 2023]

Setting "ActiveWindow.View.DisplayPageBoundaries = False" in AutoOpen() works and sticks if you open a document from within Word (when the Word App is already loaded). It works for a few seconds but does NOT stick, as the above person points out, ... if Word is spawned by the OS when you double-click on a Word Doc and the Word App isn't previously loaded.

It appears to me that Word resets this attribute after it closes out AutoOpen. Here is an inelegant workaround: schedule another Macro to set this attribute after AutoOpen closes:

Sub AutoOpen()

    Dim ScheduledTime As Double
    Dim SpawnedSub As String
    
    ScheduledTime = Now + TimeSerial(0, 0, 2)
    SpawnedSub = "TurnOffDisplayPageBoundaries"
    Application.OnTime ScheduledTime, SpawnedSub	'This will schedule the task 2 seconds into the future
        
End Sub

Public Sub TurnOffDisplayPageBoundaries()
    
   ' Hide white space between pages by default.
    With ActiveWindow.View
        .Type = wdPrintView
        .DisplayPageBoundaries = False
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    
End Sub