Default MS Word to single page view

Remember the good old days when MS Word defaulted to single page view when you'd open a document? I do. I prefer that, because I want to focus on what I'm working on, not what's 30 lines away from that.

I'm using MS Word 365, and whenever I open a document it defaults to 2-page view. I then have to sigh, squeeze a stress ball, and adjust the View setting to 1-page view to get the view I want. I'd like to set 1-page view as default. Is there a way to do that in MS Word 365?

5 Answers

Unfortunately, Word has no setting to specify a default "open" view for all documents. This means that documents open at the view mode that was used when the document was originally saved.

To force the issue, a VBA macro is required. The macro, named AutoOpen, needs to be saved in the Normal.dotm template.

Here is the macro:

Public Sub AutoOpen() ThisDocument.Application.ActiveWindow.View.Zoom.PageColumns = 1
End Sub

To always open at 100% zoom, add this line inside the macro:

 ThisDocument.Application.ActiveWindow.View.Zoom.Percentage = 100

For more information see the article Writing a Macro from Scratch.

Very late answer but I find it annoying when the question is either not answered correctly of stated that it can't be done. No code needed here and it has nothing to do with how the document was saved.

1. Open word and go to file>open
2. Navigate to c:/users/name/appdata/local/microsoft/templates
3. Open the normal.dot or normal.dots depending on your version
4. go to view and select "one page" in the ribbon under "zoom"
5. This might change your zoom so make sure it is a 100% or whatever you wish
6. Save
7. close
8. Problem gone

In Word 2016 (365), in the View Ribbon, select Print View.

Then Words opens to just one page. I have this set and always see just one page when opening Word.

I also disable the Start Screen for all Office 365 Apps, but I do not think this affects how Word opens the view. It does simplify things to uncheck Start Screen. Word, Options, General, near the bottom.

I added the "one page" and "100% zoom" buttons to the quick access bar, this seems to be the best way of dealing with it besides using macros.

The very late answer above was exactly what I wanted though I am on onedrive and had difficulty getting it to save over the existing Normal template, even saving as a template. Got there eventually. Very helpful, thank you, and especially for alterting me to the change in zoom