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
    2020-06-30T16:55:53+00:00

    You are very welcome, thanks for taking the time to say it worked fot you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-06-30T16:57:52+00:00

    This didnt make any difference to me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-30T17:11:38+00:00

    In the title bar drop down menu, I enabled/added the Mouse/Touch Mode option, then selected that to select Mouse mode (it was in Touch mode) and this immediately changed the ribbon layout. Selecting Touch mode again immediately changed it back. I'm running Version 1908 (Build 11929.20838).

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-30T17:32:46+00:00

    I've noticed other subtle changes switching between Mouse and Touch mode, e.g. I was wondering what happened to the bin icon that used to pop up next to the email in Outlook, Switching to Mouse mode, it re-appeared.

    I can see the rationale for such a feature, but when the default mode is silently changed, you spend ages trying to find out what has 'gone wrong' or is it a version issue, etc. It's yet another of those 'Microsoft knows better than its customers' things! Every time they try to be helpful by deciding for you, they seem to get it wrong. They've made strange implementation choices (used to be no option to disable wrapping within a word in PPT unless you have the Asian language pack installed), and as demonstrated by the 'Excel (on Windows) Smooth Scrolling' debacle, ignore a mass cry for a major usability feature for years.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-15T14:02:15+00:00

    I have the same problem, all of the ribbons are HUGE and you can't zoom them less than 100%. the ribbon takes up 1/3 of the screen on the top, and when i have microsoft outlook open, the mail folder on the left takes up another 1/3 of the screen, leaving actual room for emails to be unnecessarily small. What gives? is there an update that i can delete to go back to normal?

    Please don't mention touch/mouse mode- I've tried it, doesn't make a difference.

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    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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