How to reduce spacing between icons on quick access toolbar?

Anonymous
2013-03-13T22:55:12+00:00

Office 365 seems ok, though can't yet identify any improvements over 2010. However a HUGE negative is the increased spacing between icons on the QAT, which means that about 14 fewer icons fit across the screen. I appreciate that MS did this to allow easier access to the macros through touch, but I don't need this (even though I have a touch computer). I want my old icon spacing back. If anyone knows how to do this I will buy them a (metaphorical) beer. Otherwise, it is probably back to 2010 for me, unless I can find any ways in which 365 is better.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Jay Freedman 208.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2013-03-14T01:07:15+00:00

Edit: The answer below was correct for the Office Technical Preview at the time it was written. In a later update of the Preview, the ability to reduce the spacing of the Quick Access Toolbar was removed, and it is still absent in the released version as of September 2015. Please visit http://office.uservoice.com/forums/285186-general/suggestions/9906966-office-2016-quick-access-toolbar-too-wide and vote to have the Mouse Mode spacing of the Quick Access Toolbar restored.

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The Office 2013 / Office 365 programs have a touch mode with wider spacing, and a mouse mode with the same spacing as previous versions. (This affects both the Quick Access Toolbar and the ribbon.)

Click the down-arrow at the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar and click the item "Touch/Mouse Mode". The button that appears shows a hand with the index finger extended and touching a blue spot. Click that button and choose the mouse mode.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-01-10T12:24:52+00:00

    I do agree with your views. I am in to Software development for nearly 25 years now, most of the time someone comes with "Innovation" and want to implement it without even understanding the core users. For them it is more of the change they bring-in, name and fame followed by appraisals. They seldom care about the entire picture and need of the actual end users!

    UX (User experience) is one such domain / area where there is a set of associates in most of the organization to bring in "change" and whether need or not their task is to bring in changes, changes, changes... so the end users are made to accept, assimilate and digest new changes even if it is nauseating! Again there are a group of marketing team that always look for changes so that they can market. This is more of a curse of corporate, which in fact ruined several such products in the market! MS Office is one such victim, where users are affected the maximum due to introduction of so-called "innovation" the ribbon feature!

    Any long time loyal users of MS Office will sure have an aversion to the Ribbon and feel let down by Microsoft, Ribbon in fact serves no purpose to the actual users. As mentioned by someone, Microsoft may reintroduce the conventional quick access bar (without the pathetic long spacing in between buttons) in future removing the ribbon bar altogether, which is quite a waste of space. Most power users use Ctrl + F1 to first hide that useless ribbon bar!

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-01-10T20:06:33+00:00

    Any long time loyal users of MS Office will sure have an aversion to the Ribbon

    I agree. The ribbon was a very negative development from my perspective. I guess MS thought that they could fit a lot more "stuff" on the ribbon compared to the pull-down menus. Luckily I can put almost everything I need on the QAT, and only have to visit the ribbon a few times each day. If MS would wake up and give us a denser spacing in Mouse mode on the QAT, I would almost never have to visit the hated ribbon.

    By comparison, Firefox has 2.2 icons/cm compared to 1.8/cm on the Word 365/2016 QAT. This is better than it was but still means that FF has 11 more icons on its icon bar than Word on my machine. Those 11 would make all the difference.

    The reason that I hate the ribbon may be that I use it so little that I don't know it very well. Someone who has grown up with the ribbon would probably like it, and not be happy to shift to pull-down menus.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-20T01:56:44+00:00

    The Touch/Mouse toggle does nothing for me. My work setup is with a small laptop driving a separate large monitor with bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I never use the touchpad at work. I plan to work from home instead. Any solution to this?

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  4. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-11-20T02:29:10+00:00

    What version of Office are you using?

    It certainly makes a difference here with Office 2016 Version 1710 (Build 8625.2127

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