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Adobe Reader: Change Default Zoom Setting

Adobe Reader: Change Default Zoom Setting

February 27, 2023 by Mitch Bartlett 44 Comments

After installing Adobe Reader on my computer, it would display PDF files with a very small view. You can easily change this by using the Zoom buttons on the top toolbar. Having to make adjustments every time you open a PDF can get a bit time consuming though. Fortunately, you can set the default zoom percentage for when you open PDF files in Adobe Reader using these steps.

Tip: To quickly zoom in and out, you can press CTRL + or CTRL – respectively.

  1. Open Adobe Reader.
  2. Select “Edit” > “Preferences“.
  3. Select “Page Display” on the left pane.
  4. Under the “Default Layout and Zoom” area, change the “Zoom” dropdown menu to a desired setting. If the desired setting isn’t available in the dropdown menu, you can type a value manually into the “Zoom” field.
    Adobe Reader change zoom

If this setting does not appear to be working for you, it might be because it is overwritten by the “Accessibility” settings. Check them with these steps.

  1. Open Adobe Reader.
  2. Select “Edit” > “Preferences“.
  3. Select “Accessibility” on the left pane.
  4. If “Always use Zoom Setting” is selected, Reader will use the setting specified in the drop-down menu on this screen.
    Reader Accessibility settings

Now when you open a PDF file in the future, it will open displayed at just the right zoom setting for you.

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Filed Under: Software

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Aj says

    April 29, 2022 at 7:02 pm

    please make 175% zoom possible!!!!!!!!!

  2. K. Bird says

    February 2, 2022 at 9:29 am

    Thank you so much for the tip! I’ve been dealing with Acrobat defaulting to 126% page size and it was so annoying. A very easy fix following your instructions!

  3. Barb Prince says

    January 23, 2022 at 2:54 pm

    I am using Adobe Acrobat Pro, so I don’t know what may be special to that software, but I was having this same issue and neither of the suggestions (Accessibility or Page Display) would fix it. Then I found the problem under the Bookmarks. When I right-clicked on each item in the bookmark list, selected “properties” and then clicked on the “Actions” tab, I could edit the Zoom level for each Bookmark (where they were all set at the Zoom level that was driving me crazy). I clicked on “Edit”, changed the Zoom level, and then said “OK” (twice). I had to save the document to make sure it would retain the settings when I next opened the document. I think the issue was actually buried in a Java Script action that was overriding everything else – at least this is what worked for me. It was a pain because I had to make the change with every single bookmark, which in my case was many, but it fixed it so I can finally stop pulling out my hair.

  4. chrissy says

    June 9, 2021 at 8:48 am

    definitely a bug. i followed the instructions, but it didn’t work. then i went back, change page layout to single page, then went to accessibility, unchecked “always use page layout style” and then hit ok, now my documents open 100% like i want. Adobe is annoying as F(*& i hate it.

  5. Fong Chew Khew says

    April 19, 2021 at 5:22 am

    I am always sent a message from Adobe while I am mid way in my Zoom sessions and I am usually requested to perform an update it happened again just and I am unable to do the update it as the meeting is mid way!
    Could you kindly initiate the request timely enough when a session is not on!
    Moreover, I am not sure how to do it
    Please help!

  6. Dann says

    July 29, 2020 at 5:43 pm

    Is there a setting that sets WHERE on the screen I want the document to open? I have zoom/accessibility settings down, but when I open multiple PDFs they open higher and higher up on the screen until the file/tools menus end up off screen (I’m using remote software to access another computer and cannot see full screen).
    How do I get PDFs to open up in the SAME place each time?

  7. BRI says

    November 13, 2019 at 1:57 pm

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

  8. Josh says

    August 8, 2019 at 6:37 pm

    This does not work for me. However, I found the following solution, which works for me, from https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2379782

    File > Properties > Initial View > Magnification > (change the zoom to your preference)

  9. Dmitry says

    August 6, 2019 at 10:16 pm

    Thanks for the tip!

  10. Bob Crabtree says

    July 25, 2019 at 4:43 am

    Nice one!
    Thanks very much – worked perfectly for Reader DC, which for some reason always opened PDF files at 180%.

  11. John Morgan says

    July 12, 2019 at 12:15 pm

    This doesn’t work at all! No matter what settings I choose, I ALWAYS get full page display when I move to another section of the document, even though my preferences are set to Fit Width. I have set the Default Layout and Zoom to Single Page and Fit Width and under Accessibility I set Always use use Page Layout Style Single Page and Always use Zoom Setting Fit Width. EVERY TIME I move to a new section of the document, the Zoom changes to full page. EVERY TIME!

  12. Jared Baszler says

    April 17, 2019 at 11:37 am

    This used to work for me but not it doesn’t anymore. Incredibly frustrating

  13. James C. Deen says

    February 26, 2019 at 3:33 pm

    Thanks from yet another zoom-challenged soul – me !
    You have saved me hours of frustration with your tip here.

  14. Fiffle says

    January 26, 2019 at 9:03 pm

    This solution is only working on some of my documents and I have both the accessibility and page layout settings set to open automatically at 125%. One document always opens at that size, while another does not (it’s been opening at 43% instead).

  15. LMV says

    January 15, 2019 at 1:00 pm

    THANK YOU! I am so tired of my documents opening at 196% (such an odd #!) I knew there had to be a way to do this!

  16. Guray says

    December 31, 2018 at 6:03 am

    Finally someone explained the accessibility part, people just pointed out the obvious and finished the article, but this one helped a lot. Fit to width with single page continuous is quite OK.

  17. Char says

    December 14, 2018 at 6:22 pm

    Finally! Was able to easily adjust the default zoom setting. Thank you!

  18. Steve Oram says

    December 7, 2018 at 3:51 am

    Thanks Marcello – setting accessibility –> always use zoom setting to 100% it then deselecting the box work has worked. I wasted an hour fixing this. I’ve got so fed up with it over the years.

    Abode needs to fix Reader so that what is obviously a bug gets fixed.

  19. Arnaud says

    November 28, 2018 at 8:55 am

    This is SO ANNOYING, expecially when you spend your day opening and processing hundreds of files!
    I think I tried everything and nothing will work. HELP!!!

  20. Marcello Minacapilli says

    November 20, 2018 at 6:33 pm

    This is a well known issue with Adobe Reader that they haven’t fixed in years.
    If you set accesibility zoom to “page height” it always works, but if you set it to a specific zoom it won’t.
    A bizarre solution is, after having chosen the desired zoom setting and confirmed that it’s not doing it, to DE-SELECT the checkbox, as Denis said earlier.
    It does the trick for me.

  21. Kenna Benitez says

    November 15, 2018 at 12:08 pm

    I am interested in having the print option default to landscape, and 2-sided. Does anyone know how to do that?

  22. Dennis says

    November 5, 2018 at 1:23 pm

    Mursel and Obi, try de-selecting the “Always use zoom setting” checkbox in the Accessibility tab and it should default to whatever you have selected on the “Page Display” setting.

  23. Mursel Aktas says

    October 28, 2018 at 6:37 am

    I tried all those settings but acrobat reader ignores all of them. It opens the pdf file with a zoom level of 63,8%
    But i want it to open the document with a 125% zoom level… It don’t work… :(

  24. obi says

    October 17, 2018 at 3:20 am

    I tried setting both Page Display and Accessibility to Single Page Continuous and 100%. It does not work. My pdf files still launch at full blast!

  25. Lana says

    September 8, 2018 at 5:21 pm

    @Hayo Schmidt

    Thank you.

  26. Hugh Manatee says

    August 16, 2018 at 4:58 pm

    Nothing I do has any effect. I want to see 2 pages up, but no matter which Preference settings I use, it just does it’s own thing.

    WTF – Why have settings that the software ignores?

    Needing to edit the registry to fix this long-standing problem is so lame. Just make it work already.

  27. Appu INDIA says

    July 31, 2018 at 1:40 am

    Finally I found the solution. Each document is set to be open at a particular zoom irrespective of what reader settings you keep. So you open the document, go to FILE > PROPERTIES > INITIAL VIEW > MAGNIFICATION > OK!

    Voila :)

  28. M. Roberts says

    April 5, 2018 at 2:48 pm

    Not working for me. I set 150 and one pdf file opens and is 125%. Few others opened and were at 49.7%. My last update from Adobe was March 21 2018.
    This used to work. I could live with 125% if I had to but 50% is a bit much for my lousy eyesight.

  29. Billy J says

    February 6, 2018 at 2:00 pm

    Perfect. Thanks!

  30. Jitendra Pratap says

    December 27, 2017 at 6:00 am

    It works. thank you.

  31. david says

    October 28, 2017 at 12:38 am

    The only thing that helped was the registry edit. change the value from 1 to 0. Nothing else worked. All my docs were opening at 281% no matter what zoom settings per this article, were set to. Thanks to Hayo Schmidt!

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\Access\bOverrideZoom from 1 to 0

  32. Kevin says

    May 2, 2017 at 11:50 am

    I was having the same problems. After I changed the page display and accessibility settings after I closed and reopened the PDF it reverted back to the previous default size, but in the page display and accessibility setting where still what I changed them to. What I did to fix this was after I changed them to what I like from the toolbar when to file>save as>PDF and replaced it. That should fix your problem

  33. Connie says

    April 24, 2017 at 8:48 am

    I have tried doing both of the steps listed, and it keeps returning to the old settings, Automatic in the page display default, and in the accessibility one I can not get it to change from 75% it always changes back so all the pdf’s keep opening up in 75% and that is too big.

  34. Raul Sanchez says

    March 8, 2017 at 9:04 am

    If this was Reddit I’d upvote this. This was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

  35. YuJin says

    January 17, 2017 at 4:41 am

    @HAYO SCHMIDT

    Thanks for your solution.

  36. Hayo Schmidt says

    December 31, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    For Acrobat Reader DC 2015.020 (Windows) the following applies.
    Changing the settings as described above does not change anything, unless…
    – You set the page layout to Two Pages.
    or
    – You fiddle once again in the registry. (Stop Acrobat Reader). Set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\Access\bOverrideZoom from 1 to 0. Et voilà.

    Maybe there is also a check mark to set for that. I did not find any matching.

  37. Rhonda McCormick says

    December 6, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    I have changed both the Page Display and the Accessibility twice. The changes were saved okay, but I still have problems with my pdf files – most of them open at 174%, a few open at 178%!!! What can I do to correct this problem permanently?? Thanks for your help!

  38. Dan Condon-Jones says

    September 15, 2016 at 3:26 am

    I’ve tried that and it’s still not working for me. The Default Zoom on page display always reverts back to “Automatic”, and the setting in Accessibility does stick, but doesn’t appear to actually do anything.

  39. Carli says

    May 9, 2016 at 11:34 am

    Perfect Thanks!

  40. Sandra says

    February 9, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    Thank you, it worked for me, and I had checked quite a few sites before finding yours.
    They all seemed to sop at step 4. Under the “Default Layout and Zoom” area, change the “Zoom” dropdown menu to a desired setting. That wasn’t working for me because my ‘Accessibility’ wasn’t sett to 100%.
    Pictures helped too.

  41. Gopal Menon says

    January 20, 2016 at 4:21 am

    Thank you. My problem is now solved.

  42. mec says

    January 15, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    I use Adobe Reader X and EVERY .pdf file opens up at 198%!! I can change my default zoom from ‘automatic’ to 100%, and also the accessibility to ‘always use zoom setting of 100%’, but it doesn’t stick. Every time I close the reader, it reverts back to “automatic” and still opens everything at 198%. How do you make the preferences stick? There is no apply button, and ‘okay’ doesn’t seem to get it done.

  43. Pam Corson says

    November 6, 2015 at 8:57 am

    I use Adobe XPro. I have tried both of these as well. Also found an option under Edit, Preferences, Page display, which i tried changing in tandem with the other two. Nothing has worked.

    I’m wondering if it isn’t working when bookmarks are in the document?

  44. mike Harrington says

    July 6, 2015 at 11:34 pm

    I have done both of these but what has now happened is that some files open 100% (Which is what I want), some files now open about 66% (Was at 49%) and some files still open at 49%. Then there is another funny in that some files open 100% but in half a second go to 49%. I have also opened a particular file and it is at 66% but when opening it again within a minute it goes to 49% again!
    Any other ideas – please and thank you

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