New to Word 2004 - how to zoom document?

[KittyP]

I installed Word 2004 a couple of days ago, and am unable to work on
most of my documents. I receive a lot of files created on Windows
machines, which of course display much smaller on my Mac (75% of
original size is a comfortable scale on XP, but you couldn't read the
same document at less than 125% on a Mac).Trouble is, the zoom on Word
2004 doesn't work - the option on the toolbar is dimmed - so basically,
I'm unable to read anything without changing the typeface to about
18pt. The is fine on text, but it's hopeless on anything formatted. Has
anyone found a fiix for it yet??

I also find that everything emailed to me is interpreted by Word 2004
as being Read-Only. It's easy enough to change to Read/Write, but it's
very tedious (you have to detach the attachment from the email first,
when actually, you just want to leave it there).

Any advice gratefully received on either problem...

Cheers!

Kitty.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I don't think anyone else has this zoom problem, so no one has a fix for
it...is the View | Zoom option also grayed out? Does this happen in all
documents or just those emailed to you? Have you run Help | Check for
Updates on your new installation of Office 2004?

But since you are talking about emailed documents--you can set your own
default to be 125%, but it won't affect documents emailed to you. I use two
macros in a global template to force all documents to show at 125% Normal
View. See below for details. By the way, I don't think Win/Mac has a
75%/125% inherent difference in the display--I'm guessing the monitors you
are accustomed to also have different resolutions to get that wide a spread.
100% might be comfortable on a 1024x768 resolution screen but painful on a
1280x854, for example.

Re documents as Read-Only--what email program are you using? I don't think
this is a Word issue, really. As far as I know, you *can't* just leave the
attachment "on the email". Attachments need to be saved to your local hard
drive for you to edit and use them. In Windows Outlook, for instance, many
people run into problems because they open an attachment, make changes, and
save it without realizing that those changes were just being made in a
temporary file and they vanished when the doc was closed. I suspect the
Read-Only setting is your email program protecting you from accidentally
doing this, by forcing you to save the doc locally.

Entourage gets around this problem by automatically putting attachments you
open in a Saved Attachments folder and saving them there, so that you don't
have to consciously re-save the docs, but even then, if you re-open the
attachment from the email, you get the original, not your version with
changes.

**Forcing View Settings

Here are my macros as a model. Experiment with recording your preferred
settings so that you can get the right wording for whatever you want, or
tell us what you want and ask for the wording if you get hopelessly
confused.

AutoNew runs on all new documents (those you create), AutoOpen runs on all
opened documents (those emailed to you). You need both. You can't change the
name, but you can set the specs (the things after the equals sign ) to
whatever you want and choose to specify other things as well.

See here for how to install them:
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/InstallMacroMac.htm
(hit refresh a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

Sub AutoNew()
With ActiveWindow.View
.Type = wdNormalView
.Zoom.Percentage = 125
.TableGridlines = True
End With
End Sub

Sub AutoOpen()
With ActiveWindow.View
.Type = wdNormalView
.Zoom.Percentage = 125
.TableGridlines = True
End With
End Sub

Hope that helps,

 

[KittyP]

Hi Daiya,

Thanks for that. I don't really understand what macros are (!), but
I'll ask at work.

I've realised that the zoom function doesn't work on documents I've
created myself since the swop-over, as well as ones emailed to me. I
use zoom a lot, as I have visual difficulties - so I need it to work,
rather than just to have all documents display at 125% (sometimes that
isn't enough if someone has used a small typeface).

I use Mail as my email client, and there's no need to detach a document
from an email simply to read it. I don't need to edit some of these
documents, as they're often just information/memos/briefings/etc. I
keep them in my email inbox for a couple of months for reference, and
then junk them when they've been superceded. The ones I do need to
edit... prior to installing Office 2004 they worked fine, but now
attachments from all senders seem to come through classed as
'read-only' and I have to change the status of the document manually.
That isn't disastrous, though, just a bit annoying.

Anyway, I'll ask at work for further guidance tomorrow, and try out
your suggestions for the macros - that would certainly help matters.

Thanks for taking the time to look at it for me!

All the best.

Kitty.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Kitty,

Is the View | Zoom menu item greyed out as well?

You can ignore the macros if you don't want what they do, though the link I
gave you would explain a bit.

Try testing the preferences file and the Normal template, to see if they are
causing the greyed out Zoom command--you'll find instructions here:
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm
(hit refresh a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

If you have visual difficulties--what do you have enabled in System
Preferences, Universal Access? It's barely conceivable that the settings
there are causing Word to recuse itself from overriding them via Zoom.

If you only need to read the attachments anyhow, then why does it matter if
they come through Read Only? Nevertheless, check your Mail
preferences--since I don't remember any other complaints about this with
Office 2004 and Mail, I don't think it's standard behavior and should be
fixable (and I can't even conceive of how Word could be doing that,
read-only isn't really a Word setting but an OS one). If Mail had a Saved
Attachments folder as Entourage does, it's possible that the permissions on
that folder are off, that could be causing the problem.

You should also try Repairing Permissions, always good after installing
Office, see Disk Issues on the link above if you don't know how.

What OS are you using? Did you change anything else as part of the
"swop-over"? E.g., go to Tiger or anything?

Daiya

 

[Kurt]

I don't think anyone else has this zoom problem, so no one has a fix for
it...is the View | Zoom option also grayed out? Does this happen in all
documents or just those emailed to you? Have you run Help | Check for
Updates on your new installation of Office 2004?

But since you are talking about emailed documents--you can set your own
default to be 125%, but it won't affect documents emailed to you. I use two
macros in a global template to force all documents to show at 125% Normal
View. See below for details. By the way, I don't think Win/Mac has a
75%/125% inherent difference in the display--I'm guessing the monitors you
are accustomed to also have different resolutions to get that wide a spread.
100% might be comfortable on a 1024x768 resolution screen but painful on a
1280x854, for example.

Re documents as Read-Only--what email program are you using? I don't think
this is a Word issue, really. As far as I know, you *can't* just leave the
attachment "on the email". Attachments need to be saved to your local hard
drive for you to edit and use them. In Windows Outlook, for instance, many
people run into problems because they open an attachment, make changes, and
save it without realizing that those changes were just being made in a
temporary file and they vanished when the doc was closed. I suspect the
Read-Only setting is your email program protecting you from accidentally
doing this, by forcing you to save the doc locally.

Entourage gets around this problem by automatically putting attachments you
open in a Saved Attachments folder and saving them there, so that you don't
have to consciously re-save the docs, but even then, if you re-open the
attachment from the email, you get the original, not your version with
changes.

**Forcing View Settings

Here are my macros as a model. Experiment with recording your preferred
settings so that you can get the right wording for whatever you want, or
tell us what you want and ask for the wording if you get hopelessly
confused.

AutoNew runs on all new documents (those you create), AutoOpen runs on all
opened documents (those emailed to you). You need both. You can't change the
name, but you can set the specs (the things after the equals sign ) to
whatever you want and choose to specify other things as well.

See here for how to install them:
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/InstallMacroMac.htm
(hit refresh a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

Sub AutoNew()
With ActiveWindow.View
.Type = wdNormalView
.Zoom.Percentage = 125
.TableGridlines = True
End With
End Sub

Sub AutoOpen()
With ActiveWindow.View
.Type = wdNormalView
.Zoom.Percentage = 125
.TableGridlines = True
End With
End Sub

Hope that helps,

Of course, if Microsoft built in a simple command + or command - to
reduce or enlarge the page, this would all be a moot point...
Adobe's been doing it for years.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Of course, if Microsoft built in a simple command + or command - to
reduce or enlarge the page, this would all be a moot point...
Adobe's been doing it for years.

No, it wouldn't. The current thread was discussing a greyed out zoom and how
to set zoom for all documents without doing anything. An enlarge command
would not moot either of those situations.

But a predefined command for "increase zoom by 5%" is a good idea.

DM

PPS. Didya really need to quote all that?

 

[Elliott Roper]

No, it wouldn't. The current thread was discussing a greyed out zoom and how
to set zoom for all documents without doing anything. An enlarge command
would not moot either of those situations.

I might have posted this before. If you are comfortable working in page
view then assigning this macro to a suitable keyboard shortcut is
excellent for zooming in and out.

Sub pageWidth()

If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneNone Then
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdPageView
Else
ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdPageView
End If
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.PageFit = wdPageFitBestFit
End Sub

It zooms the page to fit the window. That means the text gets larger as
you drag the window wider. If you want to see the whole page, then you
can drag the window narrower - the text will shrink till the whole page
fits on screen.

 

[Kurt]

I might have posted this before. If you are comfortable working in page
view then assigning this macro to a suitable keyboard shortcut is
excellent for zooming in and out.

Sub pageWidth()

If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneNone Then
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdPageView
Else
ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdPageView
End If
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.PageFit = wdPageFitBestFit
End Sub

It zooms the page to fit the window. That means the text gets larger as
you drag the window wider. If you want to see the whole page, then you
can drag the window narrower - the text will shrink till the whole page
fits on screen.

Seems that something like this should have been built in to begin with.
Beyond the expertise of 90% of Word users.

 

[Kurt]

Of course, if Microsoft built in a simple command + or command - to
reduce or enlarge the page, this would all be a moot point...
Adobe's been doing it for years.

No, it wouldn't. The current thread was discussing a greyed out zoom and how
to set zoom for all documents without doing anything. An enlarge command
would not moot either of those situations.

But a predefined command for "increase zoom by 5%" is a good idea.

DM

PPS. Didya really need to quote all that?[/QUOTE]

No.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Elliott Roper <[email protected]> wrote:

Seems that something like this should have been built in to begin with.
Beyond the expertise of 90% of Word users.

You are 100% right. That's why this group is not too bad. I think I'm
now on the edge of the other 10%. I sure know where I was when I first
came here.

 

[Kurt]

You are 100% right. That's why this group is not too bad. I think I'm
now on the edge of the other 10%. I sure know where I was when I first
came here.

And I have as yet figured out how to get that macro- suggested earlier
to work- and that's my point. Simple functionality shouldn't mean
sitting in front of an aftermarket textbook or online group to figure
out. Plus all the time spent...

 

[Elliott Roper]

And I have as yet figured out how to get that macro- suggested earlier
to work- and that's my point. Simple functionality shouldn't mean
sitting in front of an aftermarket textbook or online group to figure
out. Plus all the time spent...

You shoulda said....
Tools->macro->macros..
give the macro a name. pageWidth will do
hit create
copy or paste the meaty bits below into the macros window between the
Sub pageWidth() and End Sub it creates for you.
Close the window and click on the main document to get rid of the macro
editing palaver.
Tools->customise->keyboard Choose categories->macros from the customize
keyboard window that opens up and select your new pageWidth macro
Then try various keyboard shortcuts till you think of something
memorable that is unassigned or assigned to something so stupid you
will never need it, and hit assign. Hit OK.
You might think that is sufficient, but there is one more trick if you
want to keep it for next time. When you quit Word next, you will get a
nag screen asking if you want to save your normal template since
changes have been made to it. Agree to that, provided you can remember
all the other possible reasons why you might have changed the normal
template and are happy to keep those too.

See! Wasn't that perfectly intuitive and obvious to the newest newbie
who, like you, felt that it should have been built into page view from
the start or at least an easy-to-set preference?

There are a couple of other ways to get the macro in there.
Easy: record it (as long as you know where the command is for the best
fit thing is. I did at the time, since that's how I did it.)
The other way is to become a programmer and learn all the magic spells.
I *am* a programmer, but life is too short to drink cask wine. It is
also too short to learn VBA and that horrible horrible debug/edit
set-up for Office.

If you have been following the discussion between John McGhie and Jeff
Wiseman here, you may use this as an illustration of how the logical
model of the software has been divorced from the user interface.
(which is sort-of why I chose to rant at length on this topic)

Finally, to be ever so slightly helpful in among the arm-waving, here
is the macro again in case you want to try.

Sub pageWidth()

If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneNone Then
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdPageView
Else
ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdPageView
End If
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.PageFit = wdPageFitBestFit
End Sub

 

[Kurt]

See! Wasn't that perfectly intuitive and obvious to the newest newbie
who, like you, felt that it should have been built into page view from
the start or at least an easy-to-set preference?

Thanks!

BTW- Forgive my lack of Word knowledge, but aren't macros written into
the document, not merely an addition to the application?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks!

BTW- Forgive my lack of Word knowledge, but aren't macros written into
the document, not merely an addition to the application?

Macros are saved by default in the Normal template, which is a global
template that is always available everywhere in the application. So,
neither, I guess....here's some additional info:
http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/word/globaltemplate.html

Kurt, you already had available the link to instructions on installing a
macro from my first post, which you responded to. I thought you must have
been having some other difficulty than just not knowing what to do with
macro code....

Daiya

 

[Kurt]

Macros are saved by default in the Normal template, which is a global
template that is always available everywhere in the application. So,
neither, I guess....here's some additional info:
http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/word/globaltemplate.html

Kurt, you already had available the link to instructions on installing a
macro from my first post, which you responded to. I thought you must have
been having some other difficulty than just not knowing what to do with
macro code....

Daiya

Appreciated, sum it up to "information overload."

You folks are making me hit the books... ;-)

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Appreciated, sum it up to "information overload."

Yes, that's always a problem.....and just getting worse.