If you use outlook, you may have noticed that there is no default way to permanently and unilaterally change the zoom (font size) in the reading pane. If you click on a message, it will be defaulted to 100% every time. This can cause obvious problems if you like a high resolution screen for some reasons, but have trouble reading small text.
I've found a few solutions, but they are not optimal:
- Change DPI on the monitor - This is bad because it affects everything else on your computer too. In my personal case, all my desktop icons get bigger and arrange in a way that doesn't work for me.
- Purchase a third party add-on - It's not expensive, but it's very stupid that I should have to purchase anything for what should be a default accessibility feature.
- Hold control and use the scroll wheel - This works great ... if only it could be permanently set for all messages.
I don't know much about macros, but I understand programming just enough to get by, and I understand that you can do some pretty powerful things with them. It certainly seems that outlook supports them in a similar use case. And this post might be helpful if I understood what it said in the first place.
So a macro is a doable option, assuming it can autorun on startup.
A free add-on would be fine too. Or plug-in or whatever else might work.
23 Answers
Reading pane text size is determined by the sender in the same way web page design and layout is determined by the creator of the web page.
Size and format of text is set by the email sender and coded into the email by HTML.
The only way to permanently adjust the size of the text in the reading pane is to adjust the display scaling or zooming the reading pane.
There is no way to set a permanent zoom level in the Outlook reading pane.
4Not sure when this was added to Outlook, but I found a way to make the zoom setting permanent.
In Outlook, below the reading pane, click where it says 100%.
Change the setting to whatever suits your needs and click on the Remember my preference checkbox.
This should make the change permanent.
1You may need to set the scaling for Outlook if you are using a high DPI display on Win 10.
Step 1) Use file explorer to find out where the outlook.exe file is actually located and navigate to that folder.
Step 2) RIGHT click on the outlook.exe; a menu will pop up on the left - select 'Properties' at the bottom of the menu; this will pop up a new window; select the 'Compatibility' tab at the top of the window; at the bottom of that window select 'Change high DPI settings'; at the bottom of the new window enable 'Override high DPI scaling behavior'; use the drop-down list below that to select ,System (Enhanced)'; select OK; select Apply.
Step 3) Run Outlook and it should open with the correct scaling. (You must close and reopen Outlook for this to take effect.)
This process will work for almost any program with small fonts on high DPI displays using Windows 10.
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