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

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-06-17T20:10:32+00:00

    This actually did the trick, after 4 days of wanting to punt this laptop that was provided to me, and exhausting our helpdesk, this approach outlined by both NDBod and Robert Funke saved my sanity....  Many Thanks!

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  2. Stefan Blom 352.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-06-17T14:13:29+00:00

    You can of course repeat your response in a related thread, if necessary.

    Anybody who is subscribed to this thread will be notified each time a new message is posted. That includes our "meta-discussion" here, of course. :-)

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-06-17T14:00:19+00:00

    Perhaps.  But the question keeps popping up even though I've responded to it several times before.

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  4. Stefan Blom 352.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-06-17T13:22:30+00:00

    You don't have to repeat this message in the same thread. Everyone who is following the thread will be able to see it.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-06-17T12:46:36+00:00

    Go to System settings

    Select Display

    Under Scale and layout, go to Advanced scaling settings

    In the panel, enter a large number (i.e., 200)

    Click the Sign out now link

    Sign out and sign back in.

    Your display should be particularly large

    Go back to System settings

    Select Display

    Turn off the custom scalingand select 100% if prompted.

    If necessary, sign out and sign in again.

    Your ribbon should look normal now.  The settings were stuck and you just "unstuck" them.

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    4 people found this answer helpful.
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