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WilliamBos

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 7, 2009
97
2
Innisfil, ON
My apologies if this is in the wrong forum. Fell free to move to the appropriate one if it is.

Whether it is Excel, or Word, I am tired of squinting to read the menu's at the top of the screen. Any way to make everything larger??
 

samh

macrumors 6502
Oct 29, 2009
317
3
My apologies if this is in the wrong forum. Fell free to move to the appropriate one if it is.

Whether it is Excel, or Word, I am tired of squinting to read the menu's at the top of the screen. Any way to make everything larger??

Is this only a problem in Microsoft apps, or all apps on your Mac?
 

WilliamBos

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 7, 2009
97
2
Innisfil, ON
When you say "menu" -- are you referring to the Microsoft Ribbon bar at the top? Or is this an issue with the menu at the top of the screen?

Yes, the ribbon bar that goes across the top of the excel/word screen, the one with all the options on it.
 
Last edited:

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,541
942
Yes, the ribbon bar that goes across the top of the excel/word screen, the one with all the options on it.
Can I customize the Ribbon?
THINGS YOU CAN'T DO
  • Add to or rearrange the commands on the Ribbon.
  • Change or remove a command or group on the Ribbon.
  • Add tabs to the Ribbon, unless you use XML and programming code.
  • Switch to the toolbars and menus from earlier versions of Microsoft Office.
  • Change the font or font size used on the Ribbon.
While the link is for Windows versions, the same applies to Mac versions.
 

BrianBaughn

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2011
9,616
2,392
Baltimore, Maryland
I hesitate to tell anyone to use the terminal, but you can use a terminal command to change the scale factor of individual applications. For example, to increase the scale factor of Excel by 50% (1.5) the terminal command would be:

defaults write com.microsoft.Excel AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1.5

The results are a bit blurry, of course. Everything in the application will be at the scale factor set...not just the ribbon bar. Also, you'll notice that the display acts oddly depending on what the scale factor is.

The "com.microsoft.Excel" part comes from the application's preference file, without the ".plist" on the end.

You can run the same command with a 1.0 value to get back to normal scale.

Other apps are unaffected.
 
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