My Outlook attachments open in the default Reading Layout view. I've unchecked this view in Word 2003 many times, held down Shift then clicked on Save All, removed add-ins from the Startup folders that appeared in Word's Global Templates and Add-ins window and deleted them from the window--but the checkmark keeps returning. It sometimes takes a few times of closing and re-opening Word--and I've rebooted many times and emptied the cache--but it ultimately returns. Any suggestions?

Assuming these attachments are Word documents, you may be receiving them in the view that was saved by the Sender. Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

Are you saying that one views Outlook attachments the way they were saved by the Sender, or is this a guess? I'm asking because I've never heard this before.

Its not because of how the sender saves the attachment. Word doc attachments will always open in Reading Layout from Outlook, regardless of the form the sent document was saved in, unless it is switched off. Unfortunately, there is no way to make this switch permanent. I'm assuming a good programmer could write something to permanently disable the "feature". I've been asking around, and if I ever find it, I'll post it. IMO, Reading Layout results in the hardest-to-read format of any word processing document I have come across since 1987. It is extremely annoying to turn it off every day. I've asked Microsoft, and their answer is that it needs to be unchecked every time you restart.

Actually, it's not true that there's no way to permanently switch off this annoying feature. It did seem as if nothing I tried would work, but finally a solution was offered and it works! You might want to refer to the thread that began on December 3 called Reading Layout View in the microsoft.public.word. docmanagement newsgroup to see various solutions and the one that worked in my case. Good luck. If you have questions, remove the "ands" from this email address: andreaANDwkANDatANDcox dot net -Andrea http://groups.google.ca/group/micro...