Fixing Small Text When Composing Emails in Outlook 2010

We’ve all been in situations where we accidentally hit a key or combination of keys on our keyboard and something drastically changed on our screen.

This problem can be made even worse if you are using a laptop and accidentally rest your palm on the touchpad or inadvertently drag your finger across it.

Many times this problem can be fixed by pressing Ctrl + Z on your keyboard or closing and reopening the problem. But sometimes you can make a change that is very difficult to pinpoint.

Such is the case with text that appears too small in an email that you are composing in Outlook 2010. If you’ve looked through all of the different program options and stared befuddled at the font size wondering how it can be correct, then there is one other solution you should check.

Fixing Zoom in Outlook 2010

The problem that you are probably encountering is that you have accidentally zoomed out on the view within Outlook. This likely occurred when you were writing an email, which is why the messages in your inbox still appear to be at the correct size, but everything you type looks so small.

Step 1: Open Outlook 2010.

Step 2: Click the Home tab at the top of the window, then click the New E-mail button in the New section of the ribbon at the top of the window. This is the button that you normally click when you want to write a new email.

outlook 2010 create new message

Step 3: Click inside the message body (the Zoom tool is not active when you are in the To field).

Step 4: Click the Message tab at the top of the window (it should already be selected), then click the Zoom button in the Zoom section of the ribbon.

outlook 2010 zoom

Step 5: Click the 100% option under Zoom to, then click the OK button at the bottom of the window.

how to fix small text in outlook 2010

Now that you know how to fix it when the text is too small to read comfortably in your Microsoft Outlook email application, you will be able to adjust this setting any time that it seems to be incorrect.

Your text should be back to its normal size now. For future reference, you likely adjusted the zoom level by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and scrolling the mouse.

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