HUGE icons & fonts on ribbon, status bar, etc

[PeterQ]

In Standard Office 2007, all programmes have in the ribbon and other matter
at the top icons and letters which seem to be in something like 48 point size
-- sometimes informnation &c runs off the sc reen and is inaccessible; in
almost EVERY instance they take up so much room they you can only see about 7
buttons at a time. The same is true of the Status Bar at the foot of the
screen, where the font is about 24 or 30 point or more. This makes an already
cumbersome programme incredibly frustrating.

Does anyone know how to fix this? (Is it worth noting that Drop-down menus
generally appear in the old (usefully small) format?)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Sounds like you need to increase your screen resolution.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix at news.microsoft.com]

From the Que book "Using Microsoft Office Word 2007":

"The contents of the tabs [on the ribbon] change somewhat depending on the
size of the Word window. All the controls are always available, but not
always in the same format.

"For example, when the Word window is fairly wide (say, around 1100 or more
pixels), each of the items in the Page Background group on the Page Layout
tab appears as a large button... When the window decreases a bit (say, to
around 1024 pixels), each of those buttons becomes a smaller, horizontal
one...

"Not only do the sizes and shapes of buttons change based on the window
width, but some groups actually change their content. All the items are still
available, but instead of them being separate buttons, they become a single
button with a menu. For example, on the Review tab, the Proofing group could
be quite expanded... moderately compressed but still with separate buttons
for everything..., or completely compressed with just a Proofing button that
opens a menu..."

What I gather from this is that it is the size of the Word window (in
pixels) that determines how the buttons on the ribbon appear. If you do as
Suzanne has suggested and increase your screen resolution, then you
effectively increase the size of the Word window (in number of pixels), which
in turn should increase the number of buttons displayed.

For example, the screen resolution on my laptop is set to maximum - 1280 x
800 - and the Proofing group on the Review tab (as mentioned in the book) is
displayed full expanded with all buttons visible and uncompressed. If I
reduce the resolution, the Word window "shrinks" - that is, it still fills
the whole screen, but the number of pixels from side to side is reduced - and
the Proofing group gets compressed. If I reduce the resolution too much, then
there are not enough pixels available to display the whole Word window, and I
get the result you have described.

Bottom line: If you want to see all (or at least more) of the buttons,
increase the screen resolution.
--
Cheers!

Gordon Bentley-Mix
Word MVP

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup.

Read the original version of this post in the Office Discussion Groups - no
membership required!