Customize Ribbon Size to Make it Smaller

Oh thank you thank you thank you!

Was driving myself insane on an already bad day trying to find it. Bless you for this!

Dee.

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?

I feel the same way.

Here are the steps to replace the ribbon with just the SMALL icons you want.

1. File > Options > Quick Access Toolbar

• Add features you want: new mail, new appointment, Send / Receive ...
• Click checkbox "Show Quick Access below Ribbon"
• Click OK when completed

2. Back on the main screen

• Click The UP Arrow
• Hide the Big Massive Ribbon "Show Tabs only"

Now you have a small icon toolbar with just the items you want.

Yours is a good solution for those who use a small set of features. But for my work as an editor I need the Review tab open at all times. I customized it--which was a learning curve over a period of weeks--and there is sits, a fat ribbon atop the screen. I would dearly like to compact it, as it was back in Word 2003, but no option to do this. Yes, Microsoft doesn't get the part about maximizing CONTENT and minimizing its Ribbon. And no, I'm not getting one of those apps that can bring you back to 2003. I've already spent enough time learing Office 2010, which I purchased in the last year to bring me up to docx level.

I too have the problem--but I find that the problem is highly variable with the age of the monitor.  On my older monitor the operating system somehow just doesn't recognize the resolution correctly and the ribbon along with the other non content stuff takes up half the page.  When I'm using a newer monitor, it is well less than a quarter.  It doesn't seem to be a resolution problem, maybe a monitor driver problem.  Borrow a better monitor and see if that does the trick.

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>