When opening Word documents from Outlook, they are by default displayed in the reading layout which is supposed to make the document easier to read. I do not like this very much, however, and fortunately, there is an easy way to turn it off; the trick is just to know where to find the option.
As explained here, this is how to do it:
- Click the “Tools” menu and choose “Options”.
- When the “Options” multi-tabbed dialog box appears, click “General”.
- Uncheck “Allow starting in Reading Layout” on the top right.
- Click “OK” to close the dialog box.