I know Office 2003 is “sooooo last season” but i get asked about this quite a lot thought i’d stick it on here
When you open Word document attached to an e-mail the reading layout is displayed. Some users don’t actually realise the view is supposed to help them read the document on screen.
What normally happens (especially if the document has pictures/diagrams) is that the user thinks the document has been poorly laid out and they close Word straight away
Quite unfair on the author wouldn’t you say?
So to change this behaviour open Word, click on the TOOLS menu and select OPTIONS
When the options dialog is displayed select the GENERAL tab and uncheck the ALLOW STARTING IN READING LAYOUT option (top right)
You can still select reading layout if need be but when you open a document from now on it will open in the standard view (usually page layout view?)
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To permanently disable Reading Layout in Word 2003, save this as a .reg file and execute it:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options\vpref]
“fAllowAutoReadingMode_1886_1″=dword:00000000
PS: Note that this is per user.
Thanks for the reg entry
Could roll this into a group policy and distribute it accross a company
Must go and take a look at the Office ADM’s to see if this can be done in group policy without any reg entries!
This does not work with
XP-SP2 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2554
and
word2003 11.8202.8202
The registry is different!
The “clean” way is to choose tools options and disble the start in reading layout radio button.
holgerdenizen,
Thanks for the comment
The reg entry is used to roll the setting out to a number of users. Bit of a pain if it’s changed though!
It’s why the ADM for group policy would be more help here
Hi to everybody!!!
Overall thanks to pisboi for this important hack.
I confirm that it is OK until you access manually Tools-Options-Standard tab …: in this case, even if you change NOTHING, when you click OK the registry key DISAPPEAR!!!
So it’s strongly recommended to put it in LogOn Script, to be SURE this option is “still” alive.
Thanks, thanks, thanks.