Posted in: Microsoft or Windows, Tech Tips, Word

Here’s a common question that PDF users have: “Every time I open a PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, I have to change view settings from ‘fit to width scrolling’ to ‘fit one full page’; can I set the default view settings to 100 percent?”

In other words, users often have to manually set the view settings (magnification) to their liking every time they open a PDF from another user or source. By default, Adobe Acrobat follows the settings set by the document’s creator, which may not be what the recipient (you!) likes.

Fit to Width Scrolling

The ‘fit to width scrolling’ view setting for page display sets the magnification at a percentage that displays the full width of the document. In other words, it’s zoomed in so that the width of the page displays fully. To view the entire contents of the page, one has to scroll up and down.

Since different documents have different sizes, this setting adjusts according to the size of the document. For instance, if it’s a letter document, it will adjust according to the letter width, whereas if the document is legal or A4, it will adjust according to its width.

This page display setting is useful when you read the page and want the font and other contents to be more legible.

Fit One Full Page

The ‘Fit one full page’ page display setting displays the full page of the PDF in front of you. Typically, that’s at 100 percent magnification. You can see the entire page on the screen, whether or not the text is legible.

Many people prefer this setting for reviewing a document or even reading. They can easily zoom in on the sections they need to examine more closely. More importantly, there’s no need to scroll constantly. Scrolling in this display view simply takes you to the next or previous page of the PDF.

How to Set All PDFs to Open at 100% Magnification (Fit One Full Page) Setting?

Here are the steps to setting ‘fit one full page’ display as default for all PDFs in Acrobat (if you are not an Acrobat user, chances are the steps are very similar in other apps):

1. Open Adobe Acrobat DC or Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.
2. Click on Edit from the top menu.
3. Click on Preferences at the bottom of the list.
4. Select Page Display from the menu on the left.
5. In Default layout and zoom, select Single Page in the Page Layout drop-down option and select Fit page in the Zoom drop-down option.
6. Click Ok to apply new settings.

Now, open a few PDF documents to check whether the new page display settings are working.

Create Shortcut for Fit One Full Page

You can also create a shortcut for this setting as an alternative to making it a default page display setting. Here’s how you do it:

1. Right-click on an empty area of the Adobe Acrobat DC toolbar
2. Go to ‘Show Page Display Tools’
3. Click on ‘Fit One Full Page’

This will put a button for this display setting on the toolbar. You can use this button to instantly apply Fit One Full Page settings and have it at 100% magnification.