To read documents in reading layout view, you click the Read button on the Standard toolbar or, on the View menu, click Reading Layout.

But if you open a Word document from an e–mail attachment or from a Web site based on Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services, it will automatically open in reading layout view. This is a default setting, which you can switch off if you want to. (On the Tools menu, you'd click Options, and then clear the Allow starting in Reading Layout check box on the General tab.)

You can always turn reading layout view back on for individual documents by clicking the Read button or the Reading Layout command mentioned above.

Note    If you edit a document from a SharePoint site, then it will open in the view it was saved in, not reading layout view.

Reading layout view is not a traditional Word view in that you can't save a document in this view. There is an exception to this rule: If you make ink annotations in reading layout view and then save the document, the document is saved in this view.