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. Stefan Blom 352.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-06-17T11:54:20+00:00

    If a particular computer brand is affected, you can try the manufacturer's web site (if you haven't already done so).

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-06-17T11:42:29+00:00

    No, didn't  matter plus  I  did  same  update  on  HP laptop  and  it's  fine.  I  will  upload  a  screenshot  in a  bit.

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  3. Stefan Blom 352.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-06-17T08:25:43+00:00

    Uninstall the most recent Windows update to see if it makes a difference on your system.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-06-16T16:13:15+00:00

    And in my case, after tearing my hair out the other day, also is the huge ribbon. When did that change? On my desktop, I have letters and invoices saved so i can find them easily. Never had a problem clicking from the desktop and Word opens up. Now, if I do that, the ribbon covers the top part of my documents, whether it’s the letter or invoices, and renders them useless. I cannot click in my document or, in the case of the invoice, change or fill in my fees. Actually, when I click on the document, it’s 4 or 5 lines above where I need to fill in data. So odd.

    So now after searching, I turned on the Touch/Mouse Mode from the Quick Access bar, enabled mouse mode, and it made very little difference. My documents are still hidden on the top part when accessing from my desktop only, not if I open them directly from the Word app.

    My solution, after hours of frustration, is to just hide the ribbon bar or just show the tabs only. And it did not affect my HP Laptop. Maybe it was the June 9th Windows 10 Update that killed everything. Had to be.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-06-10T18:28:16+00:00

    I found the issue with the large ribbon.

    Its in the "touch mouse" settings.

    Make that change and you will be happy.

    Cheers !

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