Howdy Jim,

Sorry to hear about your troubles, I too am an old version 3 user, and followed the same pattern as you did, except I landed on V9 for a while and then hopped to X3, I don't feel any need for X5 yet. Anyway, I have always used the F2 key for my "zoom in" and the F3 key for my "zoom out", I think it comes as a standard setting in Corel, but can't remember that far back unless I customised it so in my latest versions. I have just tried what you are requesting, and it does seem work the way I presume you want things to be. Give it a try in X5, unless they have changed things according to the way my X3 works. So - when I press F2, I can zoom in, or around the object, and after that, the tool I had selected is still active, if I then press the F3 Key, things zoom out, and the same tool is again active.

Hope it works for you!

Cheers - George