How to Change the Default Zoom Settings in Microsoft Office

Ways to easily grow or shrink Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more

by
Cindy Grigg
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Cindy Grigg is a former freelance contributor to Lifewire and a productivity writer who teaches Microsoft Office software to students and pros.
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Cindy Grigg
Updated on September 11, 2020

If the text or objects in Microsoft Office programs appear too large or too small, customize the zoom and default zoom settings to your preferences. You can change the zoom level for a document or adjust the default zoom for every new file you create.

Instructions in this article apply to Microsoft 365, Office 2019, 2016, 2013, and 2010.

Magnifying glass
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How to Customize the Zoom Setting of Your Office Program's Screen

These features vary according to program (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and others) and operating system (desktop, mobile, or web), but this quick list of solutions should help you find a solution.

Office files open at the zoom level used when they were originally saved

  1. Open or create a file in an Office program such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

     

  2. Select the View tab.

    View tab in a Word document window

  3. Select Zoom in the Zoom group.

  4. Choose the percentage to which you want to zoom. Alternatively, select Page Width, Text Width, or Whole Page.

    Zoom settings in Word

  5. Another option is Zoom slider in the lower-right of the window you can use by clicking or dragging.

    Zoom slider in Word

You can also use a shortcut command. Hold down Ctrl then scroll up or down with the mouse. If you do not want to use a mouse, type the keyboard shortcut Alt + V. When the View dialog box appears, press the letter Z to show the Zoom dialog box. To make your customizations, type Tab until you get to the Percentage box, then type the zoom percentage with your keyboard as well.

You can create a macro for zooming Office documents or make changes to the template, in some programs. This option gets pretty technical, but if you have a bit of extra time, it may be worth it to you to go through those steps.