Changing Background Image in a Forms Project

Hello Emma McDonald,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A.

To answer your question, there is no built-in option in Microsoft Forms to prevent background images from being scaled. Forms automatically resizes the image to fit the header area. However, there are a few ways to improve the result:

1. Use an image with a wide aspect ratio. A 2:1 ratio (for example, 2000 × 1000 pixels) usually works best. Other sizes that users have reported as effective include 1366 × 768 pixels or 3543 × 1511 pixels. Keeping the file size under 1 MB can also help reduce compression.
2. If you want more control, consider leaving the header blank and placing your image in the first section of the form. This approach allows you to display the image without relying on the header background.
3. When creating the image, add extra padding around the main content. This helps preserve important details when the image is scaled. Tools like Canva or Photoshop can be useful for this.

At this time, there is no setting to turn off scaling in Microsoft Forms. If exact control over the background is required, one option is to embed the form in a webpage and apply custom CSS for background styling.

For your information:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-a-form-theme-895ca902-833b-4f56-9488-f36480d837ef

https://support.microsoft.com/forms

I hope this helps clarify things.

Best regards,

Thomas

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