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outlooksliderzoomingautohotkey

How to locate and change the zoom controls in outlook?

AutoHotkey V2 Beta 4 on Windows 11

I am trying to locate the three zoom controls in Outlook as circled in red below, I am half blind and cannot easily read the emails or locate the zoom controls. The goal is to set the Reading Pane to a zoom level of 130%

Is there a better way to locate these controls than relative position?

enter image description here

Using relative positioning works some of the time but is not reliable.

;Move the Outlook cursor to the zoom control, reset it 100% and magnify the reading pane 130%.
WinGetPos &X, &Y, &WinWidth, &WinHeight, "A"            ;Active Window
MouseClick "Left", WinWidth - 265, WinHeight - 41, 3    ;Set 100% zoom level - Center the slilder
MouseClick "Left", WinWidth - 154, WinHeight - 41, 3    ;Set 130% zoom level - Click the plus sign three times

I always know the size and position of the window but that does not consistently help.

WinMove ((WRight - WinWidth)/2), ((WBottom - WinHeight)/2)

Thanks for your help! CraigM

Solution

  • I found a away to use VBA (which comes with Outlook) in Outlook to increase the Preview Pane zoom settings permanently. It takes 30 -45 minutes to implement if you are not familiar with VBA for Applications like me.

    Software: Windows 11, Microsoft Office Professional Plus.

    The Redemption plugin is not needed. No additional software is needed.

    You need to enable the Developer tools on the Outlook ribbon to access VBA. Right click on the ribbon, then "Customize Ribbon", and place a check next to "Developer tools"...then click Ok. On the new Developer tab in Outlook, click Visual Basic and you are off to the races!

    The Microsoft solution has a misspelling in it, you need to read the comments to guide you through the set up.

    Outlook 2010 reading pane option - want to permanently adjust the zoom setting.

    I used the original script (there are several versions by different people) and fixed the misspelling of Quite to Quit...without the e.

    The Microsoft Word 16.0 Object Library has to be enable in the Tools - References in the VBA editor.

    Then close and restart Outlook. I manually set the zoom level of the Preview Pane with the slider at the bottom right corner of Outlook. Then I restarted Outlook again and the same zoom level (130%) appeared in the Preview Pane. It still works after a complete shut down.

    I then went into Outlook's Trust Center Settings Macro Settings to ensure "Notifications for all macros" was set (File - Options - Trust Center - Trust Center Settings - Macros). This causes Outlook to warn you about unsigned macros when it starts up.

    Then I digitally signed the macro by using Microsoft's preinstalled SelfCert.exe to create a Digital Certificate. It is almost too simple to do. Follow the link below then under "Get a digital certificate" (near the top) there is a drop down for "Use a self-signed certificate". Use this option and follow the simple directions.

    Digitally sign your macro project

    Then back in Outlook VBA in the Tools menu I went into the Digital Signatures section, under "Choose" you click "More Choices" and scroll to and select your newly minted digital certificate.

    I then went back into Outlook's Trust Center under "Macros" and selected Notifications for digitally signed macros, all other macros disabled.

    Now I am no longer warned about the macro when Outlook starts and the Preview pane is zoomed to 130%.

    To be clear, I did not edit this line in the macro, I left it alone.

    wdDoc.Windows(1).Panes(1).View.Zoom.Percentage = 140

    Good hunting, I hope this helps. CraigM