2020-1-16 Set Window Size, View, and Zoom. Applies to Word 2008. Contributed by Daiya Mitchell. Word documents carry the window size and view setting with them, so that if you receive attachments from other people, or open your old documents on a new computer, you may you have to resize every document, or change the zoom on every attachment you receive, or set every document to Draft View. Microsoft Word is a word processing application that was first released on the Mac in 1985. The word processor differentiates itself from text editors such as Notes by providing a robust platform with advanced features including spell checking, embedded objects.
applies to Word 2008
Word documents carry the window size and view setting with them, so that if you receive attachments from other people, or open your old documents on a new computer, you may you have to resize every document, or change the zoom on every attachment you receive, or set every document to Draft View because that's what you prefer. This gets old very fast.
This page offers directions to write a script to set the Size, View, and Zoom for a window in a single click. You can also activate certain toolbars for custom workspace arrangements.
Known Issues
Use at your own risk; See the Script Caveat
The general principle here is that you use a script that carries out three or four actions at once. But it's a bit tricky to put the script together, because everyone has different preferences. So you'll need to look at my samples here, and use the instructions to develop your own script. (If I really knew AppleScript, I could write a little application that would get your preferences and edit the script for you, but I don't. Too bad. I didn't even write this little bit of code—Shawn Larson and Barry Wainwright contributed the basic samples here. I also apologize to real AppleScripters for the inappropriate formatting of the scripts.)
Script Editor tends to choke on text copied from the web, so it's probably easiest to download and edit this sample scripts.
Download the script and double-click to open in Script Editor.
The scripts include comments guiding you through basic editing—if you like, this page has more extensive discussion of how the scripts work.
If you have never used Script Editor before: Gray text is a comment that explains the script, while colored text is code. You will need to hit the Compile button to check your script for errors after making changes. Hit the Run button to test your script—it will run in Word and you can check the results. For more, see Mac Help on Script Editor.
Once you are sure you are happy with the script, resave it into [username]/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items. Select it from the script menu in Word to run it. You can assign keyboard shortcuts as well.
My preferred script sets the window size, turns on draft view, and sets the zoom at 125%. You'll need to substitute your own preferred settings for anything in green.
tell application 'Microsoft Word'
activate
set bounds of active window to {41, 56, 662, 854}
set view type of view of active window to draft view
set percentage of zoom of view of active window to 125
end tell
set bounds of active window to {41, 56, 662, 854}
41 and 56 tell Word how far from the top left corner to put the document, 662 is the width of the document, and 854 is the height. These pixel numbers are going to be different for every person and every monitor (mine are carefully calibrated to fit two documents side-by-side on a 15-inch laptop). Here's how to figure out yours.
Open a single window in Word. Set it to your preferred size and location. Now open a second script window in Script Editor, and run this script (or Download Get Window Size Script):
tell application 'Microsoft Word'
get bounds of active window
end tell
In the Result pane at the bottom of the Script Editor window, you should see something like:
This article is for Office for Mac 2011. Are you using Office on PC? See Using product keys with Office 365, Office 2016, or Office 2013. Where do I find my Office for Mac 2011 product key? Once you have your product key, see Activate Office for Mac 2011. When you install or reinstall Microsoft Office, you are prompted to enter the product key. Find license for microsoft office mac 2011 support.
{41, 56, 662, 854}
Substitute that result into the script.
set percentage of zoom of view of active window to 125
To change the Zoom percentage, just substitute a reasonable number for 125 (Word offers between 10% and 500% on the Zoom menu).
To set Zoom to Page Width, substitute this entire line:
set page fit of zoom of view of active window to page fit best fit
To set Zoom to Whole Page, substitute this entire line:
set page fit of zoom of view of active window to page fit full page
set view type of view of active window to draft view
Instead of draft view, in this line you can use any of the following (Print Layout is 'page view'):
normal view
Upgrade to a newer version of Office so you can stay up to date with all the latest features, patches, and security updates.To uninstall Office for Mac 2011 move the applications to the Trash. Microsoft workspace for mac. However, you could expose yourself to serious and potentially harmful security risks. All of your Office for Mac 2011 apps will continue to function. Once you've removed everything, empty the Trash and restart your Mac to complete the process.Before you remove Office for Mac 2011, quit all Office applications and make sure there's nothing in Trash that you want to keep.
draft view
outline view
page view
master view
online view
Sometimes I use Track Changes to grade student papers. To do so, I need to set each student's paper to Page Layout View, set the window to take up my entire screen, enlarge the zoom, and bring up the reviewing toolbar and my custom grading toolbar, which is very different from my usual Word setup.
I can write a script 'Set Up Grading' to do all of this in one click, using the information above.
tell application 'Microsoft Word'
activate
set bounds of active window to {43, 55, 1276, 821}
set view type of view of active window to page view
set percentage of zoom of view of active window to 150
set visible of command bar 'Reviewing' to true
set visible of command bar 'Grading' to true
end tell
Notice that AppleScript calls toolbars 'command bars'. Just look in View>Toolbars to get the right name for your preferred toolbar, and be sure to enclose it in quotation marks.
A more advanced version from J.E. McGimpseysets ALL of the open windows (Word can have many different documents open at once).
tell application 'Microsoft Word'
repeat with loopVar from 1 to count of windows
if not window state of (window loopVar) is ?
window state minimize then
set bounds of (window loopVar) to {41, 56, 662, 854}
set view type of view of (window loopVar) to page view
set percentage of zoom of view of (window loopVar) to 125
end if
end repeat
end tell
PS. I also use a script to change the text size of the comment balloons for each student paper. Post on the newsgroup if you want to know about that.