Customize Ribbon Size to Make it Smaller

This is the best complete and correct answer to the problem.

The rest are just partial answers that fixes the issue only for some cases.

This answer must be on top of the discussion, please give it a thumbs up!

This solution worked for me. The "Touch/Mouse mode" icon mentioned above was not displayed in my version, but I found by clicking the small "Customize Quick Access Toolbar" button. The larger icons are intended to help those using a their fingers to navigate a touch screen, it can be changed to mouse mode.

CLR, I think there are 2 different issues/problems being discussed here.

The first one, is the fact that the ribbon is simply "phat" and wastes a lot of screen space when compared to the 'good old' menu. There is essentially nothing we can do about that problem.

Your problem, where the ribbon takes up more than a "normal" amount of screen space is generally known as a "scaling" issue. In some cases, Office, and Windows, do not resize application elements correctly on screen. Typically the problem has been reported in relation to PowerPoint, but not exclusively.

Here are some links to other questions on the issue, with some possible fixes

PowerPoint Scaling on Dual monitor

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-powerpoint/problem-with-office-programs-scaling-wierdly/23b68a55-3674-426c-8f26-06b95e499bae

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_365hp-powerpoint/powerpoint-will-not-scale-properly-on-second/90235c12-ee4b-44ec-aafb-856b4edd6948

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-powerpoint/why-do-some-programs-not-rescale-when-moving/2d6b217d-f81c-4115-9157-c9757bb81ef8?page=4&msgId=b3450b98-b28e-45e3-9ec9-fe39c80de563 

PPT 2013 Poor Scaling (Fuzzy/Blurry) on High-Res Display

Office on External monitor not scaling properly – Win 10

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-word/office-365-external-monitor-scaling-after-windows/a2b0281a-e8c8-4134-8bb0-9fdf2f22f666

Whenever I open an Office file (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) directly from within a directory, the auto-scaling doesn't work. Everything is huge when I drag it onto my 1080p monitor. However, when I open the program first, and then browse for and open the file from within the program, the auto-scaling works fine. I've uninstalled and reinstalled office, and that didn't fix it.

Fix: Turn off Preview Pane in Windows Explorer> View tab > Panes group > select one of the other layouts, other than “Preview pane”!

Edit Manifest file

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-powerpoint/why-do-some-programs-not-rescale-when-moving/2d6b217d-f81c-4115-9157-c9757bb81ef8?page=7&msgId=512d0e7f-980e-4377-88d8-9f39c79c1263

<snip>Thank you for this pointer. Seems that this does, indeed, fix the problem (for me, at least).

For my setup (Windows 8.1, Surface Pro 3, Office 365 - Office 15) the specific instructions are few and simple:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
2. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and change the permission so you can modify the file
3. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and open with Wordpad
4. Change the line

    <dpiAware>True/PM</dpiAware>

    to

    <dpiAware>False/PM</dpiAware>

5. Save file

(at least with Office 365, you don't need to do anything in the registry as it's already looking at the external manifest file.)

Yes, line 4 seems counter-intuitive, but it's correct. Once you change this to False, Powerpoint will scale moving from high to lower DPI monitors. I've not encountered any other issues, but I've not used it for very long, yet.

Thanks to the previous pointers/authors for this tip.

(Do read

http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/

if you want more details and the history of this.)

</snip>

rescale- powerpoint will not scale properly on second Monitor – Scaling

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-powerpoint/powerpoint-will-not-scale-properly-on-second/90235c12-ee4b-44ec-aafb-856b4edd6948

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-powerpoint/why-do-some-programs-not-rescale-when-moving/2d6b217d-f81c-4115-9157-c9757bb81ef8?page=4&msgId=b3450b98-b28e-45e3-9ec9-fe39c80de563 

Thank you for this pointer. Seems that this does, indeed, fix the problem (for me, at least).

For my setup (Windows 8.1, Surface Pro 3, Office 365 - Office 15) the specific instructions are few and simple:

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
2. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and change the permission so you can modify the file
3. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and open with Wordpad
4. Change the line

    <dpiAware>True/PM</dpiAware>

    to

    <dpiAware>False/PM</dpiAware>

5. Save file

(at least with Office 365, you don’t need to do anything in the registry as it’s already looking at the external manifest file.)

Yes, line 4 seems counter-intuitive, but it’s correct. Once you change this to False, Powerpoint will scale moving from high to lower DPI monitors. I’ve not encountered any other issues, but I’ve not used it for very long, yet.

Thanks to the previous pointers/authors for this tip.

(Do read http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/ if you want more details and the history of this.)

*********

If that does not help, try removing the /PM also, changing the line to 

<dpiAware>True</dpiAware>

 instead of 

<dpiAware>False/PM</dpiAware>

*********

I am on a Yoga 3 Pro with Office 2016 (beta) now, did a search for powerpnt.exe.manifest and found it here:

C:\ProgramFiles (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16

PPT Scaling Across Multiple Monitors

<snip>

I followed these instructions and was starting to despair when neither disabling the DPI scaling nor changing the pointer to mouse made a difference.

I was having the same issue in Power Point with the giant ribbon extending my desktop across a pair of Samsung S27E450 monitors.

To resolve I called my help desk and they walked me through these steps which worked and now power point looks normal on my external monitors.

1. 1.   Go into display settings
2. 2.   Choose one of the monitors that you was extending to - which is the main monitor for me
3. 3.   Scroll to bottom and choose Advanced display settings
4. 4.   In Multiple Displays - choose Extend desktop to this display
5. 5.   Choose the right resolution for the monitor - listed as (recommended) by Windows
6. 6.   Hit apply
7. 7.   Save the changes
8. 8.   Go back to advanced settings for that monitor - Look for a request to log out next to the Multiple Displays
9. 9.   Log out

Log In

11. Start Power Point  

Hope this helps!

</snip>

Bad manors? How about posting generic non solutions to specifice problems that it is obvious the generic solution won't help because it isn't a bug, but is instead poor design. That's bad manors as well.

I'm happy to try a solution when it is a solution, but find it very annoying when people post the most obvious first steps to other problems. You shouldn't expect love and kisses when you are just trying to make people feel stupid.

This thread has been here for 2 years, if either of your suggestions would work they would be here. This problem is a design flaw MS hasn't bothered to fix. I would expect someone to say "they fixed that about so long ago and here's how you deal with it" if someone is truly trying to be helpful, not "here is the most obvious thing to try and I don't know if it will work but I need to post something anyway."

If you're going to be obnoxious expect people to return the favor.

Does repair have a way to set the ribbon size smaller? If not you haven't bothered to read the subject line much less the thread. If it does I'll give it a try but I am not wasting my time taking a shot in the dark.