How Can I Reduce Size of Ribbon Icons & Text in Office 365 / 2016?

Anonymous
2019-09-26T00:38:24+00:00

Since MS Office was updated earlier in 2019 (for me) I have had this stupidly sized ribbon that takes up about double the screen area compared to previous iterations of Office.  I want to reduce it, so do many other people it seems but there seems to be no satisfactory method.

Before answering, please read the following;

  1. I do not want to HIDE the ribbon, I just want the icons / text to be smaller.
  2. I know about the MOUSE / TOUCH setting.  It is already on Mouse and the ribbon is still far too big.
  3. Monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080 on my laptop and secondary screen, there is no option to change monitors.
  4. Text size in the OS is currently set to the recommended 125%  I do not want to change this as I do not want to upset any of my other (many) applications.
  5. This is only a problem caused by the update in MS Office, no other apps are affected.

Will someone at Microsoft please explain how to reduce the childish looking icons and text in the MS Office Suite so that I can recover screen space?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Other

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

87 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2019-12-02T14:22:09+00:00

    Paul,

    I have had the same problem and could not find a setting to change it.

    I run multiple monitors.  I have found that if I move the application with the offending large ribbon size to another monitor, it becomes reasonably sized.  What see a bit crazy is that when I move it back to the original monitor, it retains the reasonably sized ribbon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Was this answer helpful?

    40+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-10-06T07:09:21+00:00

    Hi, 

    I have had the exact same problem and tried the above. 

    I was able to fix the issue by setting the scaling (settings/display/scale and layout) to 200%, logging off, then logging on. I then set the scale to the required level and log off and on and the issue was resolved. I found it on the link below.

    "OS Scaling settings can sometimes get "stuck". Outlook, because of the many different UI elements and how they interact with scaling and other aspects of the display, seems, in my experience, to experience more issues with scaling than other applications.

    The simplest fix is to change the system scaling setting to any other value, log off and back on, and then set them back to the desired value and, again, log off and back on.

    If this doesn't resolve the problem, removing the graphics driver by deleting the Display Adapter from the Device Manager, and then restarting the computer and either allowing Windows to find and install the current driver, or finding the most recent driver, and downloading and installing it, should resolve the issue."

    https://superuser.com/questions/1429306/office-365-outlook-has-huge-fonts-how-to-make-smaller

    Was this answer helpful?

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-12-19T15:03:11+00:00

    I have the same problem. I have to scale my monitor to 125% to make a certain piece of software usable, but it makes the Ribbon much too large. Please patch asap Microsoft. Scaling has been around for about 20 years and it continues to be a major challenge for Windows and Office. Baffling.

    Was this answer helpful?

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-10-16T03:16:48+00:00

    Hi Paul,

    Thanks for posting in our forum.

    From your post, I understand after updating Office, the size of the ribbon icons and the font has been increased and it is taking the large amount of screen area as compared to the earlier version.

    On my end, I tested with the latest version of Monthly channel 1908 (Build 11929.20300) to check if seem the same behavior, the ribbon icon and the font size looks same as before. Here’s the screenshot for your reference:

    Since you are getting the issue, may I request for the following information to troubleshoot the issue?

    1. Please provide us with a screenshot of Office 365 Product Information. To get this screenshot, open any Office app such as Word or Excel on your system, click File>Account, capture the screenshot of all the information mentioned under Product Information. (Note: please remove any sensitive information from the screenshot such as email address or full name etc.).
    2. Do you see the same behavior in all Office apps?
    3. A full screenshot of a document showing increased ribbon icons and font size.

    Thanks,

    Neha

    I want my ribbon to look like the one in Neha's comment, but mine keeps changing! How do I get mine to look like Neha's and stay that way? Mine changes its appearance SEVERAL times a day in Word, Excel and Outlook!

    Was this answer helpful?

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-05-13T20:13:34+00:00

    Neha,

    I think what many of us are saying is that we do NOT want to rescale ALL of Windows.  This issue is ONLY in MS Office apps.

    Please clarify how to solve this issue WITHOUT changing the entire system.  If you do not know, please escalate this case.

    Adam

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments