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How do I expand the styles area in my ribbon on the top of my word documents?

Cassandra J 111 Reputation points
2021-04-14T00:31:45.28+00:00

When I have my ribbon pinned open in my word document I cannot see all of the available styles (ie normal text or headings) It has the styles section but has no options until I open the styles pop-out window. This is what it looks like.

87478-image.png

This is what I want it to look like
87511-image.png

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows
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  1. Cassandra J 111 Reputation points
    2021-04-15T15:05:14.803+00:00

    Thank you for your help @Erin Ding-MSFT and @John Korchok ! I was able to solve the issue on my own. My laptop is a touch screen and I accidentally changed the spacing optimization from mouse to touch screen which is why I was no longer seeing the styles in the ribbon. As seen pictured below.

    88220-image.png

    1 person found this answer helpful.

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  1. Charles Kenyon 166.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-22T15:32:02.723+00:00

    You can add a custom Ribbon tab that only has the styles.

    185696-00-deleteme-8.png

    You can click on the drop-down to give the full Styles Gallery.

    Keep in mind that the Quick Styles Gallery is only a small subset of the styles in your document or available.

    185657-00-deleteme-9.png

    You can add a button for the styles gallery to your QAT so that you can get that regardless of which tab is active in the Ribbon. Here is a link to a macro-free add-in that adds a number of style controls to the QAT.
    StylesQATAdd-In02.png
    http://addbalance.com/word/download.htm#StylesQATAddIn

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  2. IT Hoser 0 Reputation points
    2023-09-07T00:27:02.9133333+00:00

    Hey folks I realize this is an old thread, but my problem is so similar I thought I'd give this a try... I'm using Office 2021 (not cloud/365) my styles gallery in Word in full screen mode used to look similar to this with five or six styles showing:

    User's image

    It has now switched to this:
    Where I only get three styles showing, and they are very loosely packed like this:
    User's image

    I checked the mouse vs. touch-screen setting and I is still set to mouse, so that's not it ...

    Any suggestions appreciated ...

    Thanks,

    Jim

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  3. Jason Polis 1 Reputation point
    2022-08-21T17:30:05.893+00:00

    To "add a custom Ribbon tab that only has the styles"
    I moved the Styles groups from the Home tab into a new tab named styles.
    I then selected the Home tab and Reset only the selected Ribbon tab so that it would reappear on the Home tab.

    I did not figure out how to otherwise add the text styles gallery from the left hand side of the Customize Ribbon options.
    233167-image.png

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  4. Erin Ding-MSFT 4,491 Reputation points
    2021-04-14T09:36:52.917+00:00

    Hi @CassandraJ-8057,

    Welcome to Q&A forum.

    As JohnKorchok said, "The style gallery automatically collapses when there isn't enough screen space", please make sure the Word is maximized to fill your screen.

    If it doesn't help, you could try to go to File>Options>Customize Ribbon to Remove Styles, then re-add it to have a check.
    87640-image.png

    Besides, you could select Home tab, then in the drop-down list of Reset select Reset only selected Ribbon tab to set Home tab to its default settings.
    87702-image.png

    Any updates, please let us know.

    If an Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
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