MicrosoftHolli525To my great surprise, Help sort of helped:
"You can set a permanent default zoom level. Here are the detailed steps:
1.In your inbox, double-click a message to open it in a standalone message window.
2.Near the right end of the ribbon, select Outlook zoom icon Zoom.
(If you don't see Zoom, select the "more commands" ellipsis at the right end, then select Zoom.)
3.In the dialog, set the percentage you want.
4.Select Remember my preference, then select OK."
You might have to hunt for the Zoom button or add it via customising Quick Launch or a ribbon. The setting you enter in that dialog box should apply to both message windows and the Reading Pane.
At least that works for me, for now, at work. I work in a heavily managed environment and we don't get all the Mikey pushes automatically, but crappy changes like this do seem to eventually work their way in. Maybe on day a large enough group of enterprise customers (or regular ones?) could persuade them to create Office 365 Professional and give us back the compact, highly customizable GUI that it seems most on this thread want.
