Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 8, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Many Excel users have problems with the size of font used to display names in the worksheet tabs used by Excel. Unfortunately, there is no way to change the font size within Excel, itself. This is because Excel relies on settings within Windows itself to control how worksheet tabs are displayed. They are considered part of the horizontal scroll bar used by Excel. Fortunately, Windows allows you to increase the size of your scroll bars. By doing so, you increase the size of Excel's worksheet tabs.
You change the size of scroll bars by following these steps:
Figure 1. The Appearance tab of the Display Properties dialog box.
Jump back into Excel and check the size of the worksheet tabs. You can repeat these steps, as necessary, until you get just the right look. Understand, however, that you are modifying Windows' configuration information, not Excel's. This means that your changes will also affect other programs you use, not just Excel.
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