Customize Ribbon Size to Make it Smaller

Anonymous
2013-08-26T01:47:56+00:00

I'm extremely disappointed that Microsoft has made the ribbon so HUGE and does not appear to offer any way of customizing its size other than completely collapsing it.  Between the menu bar, the ribbon, the formula bar, etc. almost HALF of the screen real estate is non-content. Microsoft has it backwards, thinking the more screen space should go to the user interface rather than the content. This is maddening, and it's extremely frustrating that Microsoft doesn't allow me to customize the size of the ribbon to maximize content. Does anyone know of a work around?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-03-24T18:18:49+00:00

    Office 365 only increased the size of the ribbon with no options to reduce it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-05-05T09:15:44+00:00

    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.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-09-04T20:41:39+00:00

    You win today. And tomorrow. That was insanely aggravating. THANK YOU.

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-12-01T10:26:28+00:00

    This worked for me - having looked through this thread.  On my version of Windows (Nov 2017) the mouse/touch solution didn't help as the mouse setting was already the default.  However the text size was defaulted to 150% and this was the cause of the problem.

    1. Press the Window key on your keyboard
    2. Type "Display" to bring up the display settings
    3. Set the field "change the size of text, apps and other item" to 100%
    4. Set the resolution to the highest for your laptop / screen

    If this doesn't work, you will need to invest in either a laptop with a higher resolution screen or higher resolution screen driven from your PC if it will drive it. 

    Note:  My view is that you need 1920x1080 for Excel to look good at 100%

    With a default setting of 150*%**, the ribbon is far too large (just as you describe).*

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