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Changing Word zoom to custom fixed settings

How to change Word zoom to your preferred Zoom settings.

Ray R writes …

I have been having some vision problems lately and have found that using Word’s zoom dialog to increase the displayed font size without changing it in the document or email (I use Word as my email editor in Outlook) has been very useful. But most of the time the fixed option of 200% is too much. I have found that 130 or 150 percent is about right. Is there a way to change the fixed options in the zoom dialog?

We’re not aware of any way to adjust the default settings in the Zoom dialog nor the slider on the bottom right of the Word  status bar.

Custom Zoom button

One alternative is to make your own toolbar buttons (Word 2003 and before) or Quick Access Toolbar buttons in Word 2007 and later that are linked to a very simple Word macro.

Here’s the code:

Sub ZoomFixed()

‘ ZoomFixed Macro

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 123

End Sub

Change the ‘123’ value to whatever zoom percentage you want – 130, 150 or whatever.

If you have multiple preferences you can make two macros and attach to different buttons:

Sub Zoom130()

‘ ZoomFixed Macro

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 130

End Sub

Toggle two Word Zoom settings

To get more complex try something like this to switch between two preferred Zoom percentages.

Sub ZoomSeveral()

If ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage < 130 Then

  ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 130

ElseIf ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 150 Then

  ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 130

ElseIf ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage >= 130 Then

  ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 150

End If

End Sub

This will switch to 130% zoom if the current zoom setting is less than 130%. If zoom is 150% it will switch to 130%. For any other zoom above 130% it will switch to 150%.

With one click of the button, the zoom will jump to one of your preferences (130% or 150%) then toggle between the two.

More broadly, check out the Accessibility options in your version of Windows for other options to help see what is on the screen.

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