Excel 2016 for Mac – How to Change Default Zoom Level for New Documents

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How do I change the default zoom level for new documents in Excel 2016 for Mac? I looked online but found a lot of conflicting information. Also, most tutorials online seem to be for the 2011 version rather than the 2016 version.

The default zoom is 100% but I'd like to change it to 150%.

Best Answer

There is a lot of confusion around how to do this, not just because it's changed from Excel 2011 to Excel 2016, but also because the process has even changed during Excel 2016's lifecycle.

I've also seen a number of different ways people have used to achieve a totally customised default workbook.

In the interests of providing alternatives, I thought I'd share my preferred method as well:

  1. On your Mac create a new folder called "xlstart". You can create this folder anywhere, but I prefer doing it within the Documents folder.
  2. Launch Excel
  3. Go to Preferences > General > At startup
  4. For open all files in set the xlstart folder you created at Step 1 as the path
  5. Exit preferences
  6. Open a new workbook and customise your Zoom setting to 150%.
  7. While you're at it, you can also customise a whole heap of other attributes if you like
  8. Save the workbook as an Excel template, making sure you use the name "workbook", and make sure it's saved in the xlstart folder you created at Step 1. (Note: when saving the file, if Excel has placed the .xltx extension at the end of the file name, then manually remove the .xltx extension before saving)
  9. Quit Excel
  10. Launch Excel

You should now find the default workbook has all the customisations you made at Steps 6 & 7.

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