I face this strange problem with some Word documents. Although I work, save and close them in “Text Width” view, when I reopen them they appear in Page Width view, although in Zoom settings “Text width” is still selected! I wasn’t able to explain why this happens only with some of my documents, while most of them open as expected, but I found this way to overcome the problem.

When you open a document that won’t behave, just press Alt+W+E, to enable Draft View, then Alt+W+P to get back to Print Layout mode. Your document will now follow the “Text width” mode that is checked in Zoom settings!

If you prefer not to repeat this manual adjustment each time you open problematical documents, you can download an “AutoOpen” macro to import to Word to automatically go to Draft then to Print view when you start a document. If you already use an AutoOpen macro, just add this one at the end (except for the Sub / End Sub parameters).

Read this post if you are not familiar with importing MS Word macros using .bas files.

Download AutoOpen Draft Then Print macro for MS Word

Being yourself an author or student you will perhaps appreciate especially this feature, that the very structure of the book will teach you how to work. The book contains even chapters on how to prepare a document for professional publishers such as Amazon. Reading Steven Adams' Writing a book or thesis in Microsoft Word you are surprised realizing it makes you want to work -- to think, write, use Word and be creative!