Automatically Opening a Document at a Specific Zoom Setting

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 6, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Unfortunately, Word does not have a setting you can use to specify a default "open" zoom level for your documents. (This would be very nice—Redmond, are you listening?) This means that documents open at the zoom level used when the document was originally saved.

One way to work around this is to create an AutoOpen macro, and then save it in the Normal template. This macro is then automatically run whenever a document based on the template is opened. Since every document has access to the Normal template, every document will have access to the macro.

To make the change, simply open the Normal template file directly and then create your macro, as follows:

Public Sub AutoOpen()
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 200
End Sub

Notice that in this very short macro the zoom level is set to 200, which means 200%. If you want some other default zoom level, simply change the value to the desired percentage. Now save and close your Normal template, and exit Word. When you restart Word and open your other files, they should change to the specified zoom level automatically.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1343) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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