Make Excel ribbon less gigantic

The ribbon in Excel (from Office Professional Plus 2016) is GIGANTIC.

Compare the vertical size in the two images below:

The top screenshot is from changing the ribbon setting to "Show Tabs" and then clicking on a tab such as Home, while the bottom is "Show Tabs and Commands", but that's not all it does. It makes the thing huge vertically.

I understand there are some slight differences with what is shown on the two, but I'd like to always show the ribbon, but at the more reasonable size of the "Show Tabs" setting, like the top picture. Is there a way to do this?

Solution 1:

4th icon from the very upper-left corner allows you to select additional commands to add to the quick command bar up there.

One of these options is Touch/Mouse Mode. Click this to add the button to the bar.

Now click this new button (it looks like a hand with a pointing finger) and change it to Mouse.

I'm not sure how you switched, but it looks as though you went into Touch Mode, which spaces the buttons on the ribbon further apart so they are more finger-friendly. Switching back should shrink the bar back.