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; I do not want to HIDE the ribbon, I just want the icons / text to be smaller. I know about the MOUSE / TOUCH setting. It is already on Mouse and the ribbon is still far too big. Monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080 on my laptop and secondary screen, there is no option to change monitors. 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. 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?

I suggest going into your Advanced Scaling Settings and changing it to 200 and hit "Apply." Then restart your computer. Change the size back to 100%. Then restart again if needed. It should work. Microsoft, Somehow this changed within the last week. I have attached a screenshot. The toolbar, ribbon & sheet tab are too large.

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.

It's clear some Microsoft folk don't know their own product! The latest O365 install must set the Mouse/Touch mode by default, and it was driving me crazy, yet this simple change fixed it. The 'Mouse' setting provides a much more compact and usable ribbon. Thank you pajbennett.

I have the exact same problem as described here - but as pajbennett showed, the fix is easy. Just toggle the touch/mouse mode within the application (eg Word or Excel). Easy. thank you

Hi Paul, Thanks for getting back to us. The size of the ribbon icon and visibility of the rows depends on the screen scaling. For example, here’s the screenshot of Excel 365 worksheet at 100% (recommended on my system) scaling. From the screenshot, you can see 38 rows are visible and ribbon is smaller. Whereas in the screenshot below, only 28 rows are visible and ribbon icons are larger at 125%. I understand, in newer version of Excel, ribbon icons are larger, and a smaller number of rows are visible. As Office applications keep updating with new features and functionality, the look also evolves. Thus, changing the size of the ribbon when compared to Office 2010. I know you don’t want to change the scale setting on your computer, in this regard, you can consider providing feedback in Excel UserVoice and let the Product Group know your requirement about making the ribbon icon smaller. UserVoice is the best way to give the feedback to Product Group as it’s actively monitored by them and many new features have been implemented from our customers feedback. We highly appreciate your understanding. Regards, Neha

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

Anonymous

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;

I do not want to HIDE the ribbon, I just want the icons / text to be smaller.
I know about the MOUSE / TOUCH setting. It is already on Mouse and the ribbon is still far too big.
Monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080 on my laptop and secondary screen, there is no option to change monitors.
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.
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?

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.

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87 answers

Anonymous

2021-05-18T21:55:42+00:00

I suggest going into your Advanced Scaling Settings and changing it to 200 and hit "Apply." Then restart your computer. Change the size back to 100%. Then restart again if needed. It should work.

Microsoft,

Somehow this changed within the last week. I have attached a screenshot. The toolbar, ribbon & sheet tab are too large.
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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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Anonymous

2020-06-30T16:47:41+00:00

It's clear some Microsoft folk don't know their own product! The latest O365 install must set the Mouse/Touch mode by default, and it was driving me crazy, yet this simple change fixed it. The 'Mouse' setting provides a much more compact and usable ribbon. Thank you pajbennett.
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4 people found this answer helpful.

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Anonymous

2020-05-04T03:07:24+00:00

I have the exact same problem as described here - but as pajbennett showed, the fix is easy. Just toggle the touch/mouse mode within the application (eg Word or Excel). Easy. thank you
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Anonymous

2019-09-27T07:08:05+00:00

Hi Paul,

Thanks for getting back to us.

The size of the ribbon icon and visibility of the rows depends on the screen scaling.

For example, here’s the screenshot of Excel 365 worksheet at 100% (recommended on my system) scaling. From the screenshot, you can see 38 rows are visible and ribbon is smaller.

Whereas in the screenshot below, only 28 rows are visible and ribbon icons are larger at 125%.

I understand, in newer version of Excel, ribbon icons are larger, and a smaller number of rows are visible. As Office applications keep updating with new features and functionality, the look also evolves. Thus, changing the size of the ribbon when compared to Office 2010.

I know you don’t want to change the scale setting on your computer, in this regard, you can consider providing feedback in Excel UserVoice and let the Product Group know your requirement about making the ribbon icon smaller. UserVoice is the best way to give the feedback to Product Group as it’s actively monitored by them and many new features have been implemented from our customers feedback.

We highly appreciate your understanding.

Regards,

Neha
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4 people found this answer helpful.

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