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fbedir's avatar
fbedir
Copper Contributor
Oct 20, 2025

Excel font rendering blurry when zoomed out (Windows 11, Microsoft 365)

Hello Community, I’m experiencing an issue with Excel (Microsoft 365) on my new Windows 11 ASUS touchscreen laptop. The text in Excel becomes noticeably blurry when zooming out, but looks fine when ...
excel
office 365
Kidd_Ip's avatar
Kidd_Ip
MVP
Oct 21, 2025

How about this:

 

  1. Force Excel to Use System DPI Scaling
  • Right-click the Excel shortcut > Properties
  • Go to Compatibility tab > Click Change high DPI settings
  • Under High DPI scaling override, check Override high DPI scaling behavior
  • Set it to System (Enhanced)
  • Click OK and restart Excel

This forces Windows to handle the scaling instead of Excel, which can improve clarity at lower zoom levels.

  1. Try Different Zoom Levels
  • Some users report that certain zoom levels (e.g., 100%, 125%, 150%) render more clearly than others.
  • Avoid odd zoom levels like 67% or 73%, which may trigger suboptimal font smoothing.
  1.  Switch Display Graphics Mode
  • On ASUS laptops with integrated + discrete GPUs, try switching Excel to use the dedicated GPU:
    • Go to Settings > System > Display > Graphics
    • Find Excel and set it to High performance
    • Restart Excel
  1.  Disable Touchscreen
  • Temporarily disable the touchscreen in Device Manager under Human Interface Devices
  • This can help isolate whether the touchscreen driver is interfering with rendering
  • fbedir's avatar
    fbedir
    Copper Contributor
    Oct 26, 2025

    Hi,

     

    I tried #1, but the Compatibility tab is not visible in properties.

     

    #2 didn’t make any difference in this case.

     

    I attempted #3, but it had no effect either.

     

    Disabling the touchscreen didn’t change anything.

     

    I’ve noticed this issue occurs on other PCs as well, so I assume it’s related to the new version of Excel. It seems to be an Excel-specific problem and not something tied to PC settings, so it likely needs to be fixed within Excel itself.

     

    Thank you for your suggestions though.

    • sea1's avatar
      sea1
      Occasional Reader
      Nov 12, 2025

      Microsoft Excel 2019 running on Windows 11.

      Specifically, when the zoom level is reduced below 65%, the font appears to change to a different typeface, and the spacing between characters becomes significantly misaligned. This results in a distorted and unreadable view of the spreadsheet.

      For reference, this issue does not occur in the same version of Excel 2019 on Windows 10, even when using the identical file. I have tested this across multiple systems to confirm the behavior is consistent and isolated to Windows 11.

      This problem is particularly disruptive for users who frequently zoom out to view larger portions of spreadsheets, as it severely impacts readability and productivity.

      I kindly request that your team investigate this issue, perform necessary testing, and provide a fix or workaround in an upcoming update.

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