The Shifting Scale
Google Docs aims to provide a consistent reading experience. By default, the application is often set to a zoom level of “Fit.” This means the document will automatically scale up or down to perfectly fill the width of your active browser window. If you are multitasking and drag your Chrome window to snap to the left half of your screen, Google Docs will automatically aggressively zoom out (perhaps to 70%) to keep the margins visible. If you maximize the window, it might zoom in to 150%. This constant, automatic scaling completely destroys your spatial perception of the document’s true physical size.
Locking the Zoom Level
To maintain a stable editing environment and stop Google Docs from automatically zooming the document when you resize your browser window, you must change the zoom setting from “Fit” to a hard percentage.
Open your Google Doc. Look at the main formatting toolbar across the top (where you change fonts and text alignment). Look for a small drop-down menu that currently displays a percentage (like 100%) or the word Fit. Click on this drop-down menu. You will see a list of predefined options. Do not select “Fit.” Instead, explicitly click on 100% (or type exactly 100 into the box and press Enter). This hardcodes the magnification scale. Now, if you shrink your browser window to a tiny sliver, the text will remain exactly the same physical size on your monitor, and a horizontal scrollbar will appear at the bottom of the screen instead of the document shrinking into unreadable tiny text.