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?

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  1. 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

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-10-01T13:42:30+00:00

    We discovered a fix for this. 

    Start Menu>Windows Ease Of Access>Magnifier. 

    It will already be set at 100%...Scale it up, then scale it back to 100% and that solves the issue and brings it back to the correct scale. 

    This worked on the 2 machines that we have seen on this so far.

    Hope that helps.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-09-28T20:15:20+00:00

    We are having users with this same issue now as well. 

    When a different user logs in and opens office, it is fine. 

    But for some users it is blown up. I also notice that on the desktop- the text under the icons is blown up as well.

    This is not a resolution/display issue. 

    No fixes that have been mentioned here have corrected this issue. This lives in the profile somewhere.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-09-22T16:04:39+00:00

    You also can try this:

    Go to Options and under the General try to play with Optimize for Compatibility

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-21T05:43:20+00:00

    Exactly the same - it solves the problem - bizarre but problem solved.

    Thanks all.

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