How to reduce the size of quick access toolbar icons? (Office 2016)

Anonymous
2015-09-22T22:39:10+00:00

With the update to Office 2016 the Quick Access Toolbar icons were enlarged.

I used to have a filled Quick Access toolbar for Excel and now they do not fit defeating the purpose.

Is there any way to reduce the size of Quick Access Toolbar items?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2015-11-05T18:00:03+00:00

Folks, our shared UX controls team have been following this thread, as well as your requests on UserVoice and are spinning up some work to address your concerns. I can't promise a specific date for getting this work out to you all, but they recognize the impact this has had on those of you who work with customized QAT and are moving very quickly.

When they're done you'll see the improvement arrive as part of the regular updates we send all subscription customers.

Thanks again for the clear feedback, both here and on UserVoice - keep it coming!

Cheers...pc

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-16T15:50:31+00:00

    Hello All, 

    Some of you have expressed reservations about updates.  Turns out there is a great website that has an ongoing thread about the latest updates as they are rolled out.

      "Quite a lot of updates released this week, including some very important ones, sorry i couldn't post this earlier but have been very busy with many matters this week. I installed the updates listed below, as usual a mix of updates for windows itself, for IE, for flash player in IE and for ms office programs. They all installed without fine, though they took a while to download and install, the "installation" of the KB890830 update was especially slow (it's often the slowest to install of the updates released in any given month but this time it was particularly noticably slow) but none of them had any problems...." It goes on and on.  

    I posted previously how you can configure updates not to install automatically.  I will try to find that post and repost here. 

    And just give us the darn ribbon icons on the QAT.  How hard can that be?  I despise the arrogance of the touchie crew destroying what was a fine interface.  You realize that us desktop users comprise the majority of users, no?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-16T00:31:13+00:00

    I concur completely.  The QAT icons need to lose weight and take up the same amount of space as the icons in the ribbon, or else the QAT loses a substantial amount of its usefulness.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-01-15T23:46:52+00:00

    Good documentation Sandra.

    I was just wondering if you have "Touch Mode" turned on.  Playing with my touch mode on my Word 2013 I now "messed up" my installation too. 

    This is not the same problem but probably loosely related.

    I turned on touch mode, there was no apparent change, but a new icon showed up. It gives 3 options: Autohide ribbon, Show tabs, Show ribbon and tabs.  Being monkey curios, I clicked on Show ribbon and tabs, it suddenly expanded by buttons, presumably into touch mode.   Now I have lost 3 buttons to the dreaded More Controls. 

    Since then:

    • I have turned touch mode on and off.
    • I have tried all three "new" show/hide options.

    My QAT remains in expanded/touch mode. <sigh>

    Does anyone know a registry key I can "hack" to fix this stupid problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-01-15T23:24:28+00:00

    Nice piece of work there Sandra.  I apologize for any misleading.  You are right.  I thought the update reduced the spacing, but it doesn't seem like much.  BTW, 2010 was pretty much the same as 2007.  The last good version.  Frankly, while there are some nice elements of this 2013/2016 abortion in terms of pivot table functionality, having to scroll the QAT is getting really old.  I am sorely tempted to reinstall 2010 and deal with the slight loss of functionality.   I had mine set up to run two separate panes in the same screen, with all my QAT commands present.  Now it takes the entire screen for one.  But at least I can do it... Like I said, it's now only twice as bad.  I love how you absolutely decimated those GUI idiots.  PC, we love ya for trying to cover for MS, but there is no way to justify this crappy interface by reference to all of the other supposed "good things" involved.  If the ribbon buttons are the right size, just have the idiots in charge put in ribbon buttons on the QAT.  Simple, and end of story.  This is gotten really old.

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