Office: Customising toolbars
Published on 3rd May 2005
If you have some commands that you use on a regular basis that you have to go the long-winded, dialog-box way to invoke you will be able to make your life easier by adding a button for it onto the toolbars. For example, to apply a Style in Word, or to set the Print Area in Excel, there are quite a few mouse clicks to open the dialog box in the correct place and apply what you want.
The ability to add buttons to the toolbars is available in all the Microsoft Office programs, and works in the same way, so once you know how to do it one, you can do it in all of them.
Adding a Command to the Toolbars
We will guide you through adding the Save As... command to the toolbars. This procedure can be followed in any of the Microsoft Office suite.
- Give the command Tools - Customize. This will open a dialog box, where you need to select the Commands page.
- On the Commands page you'll see two lists. The list of Categories on the left divides the commands up in a similar way to the menus. This is good because if the command you are looking for is in the Edit menu, then you should look for it in the Edit Category. The list on the right are the commands that belong to the selected Category.
- Select the File Category. The list on the right now shows all the commands we can add to the toolbar.
- Scroll down the list of Commands to locate the command you are looking for (in this example, Save As...).
- Drag the command from the list onto the toolbar. When you start dragging you'll see a black X alongside the mouse, which shows that you can't drop the button into this position. When you drag the button onto the toolbar, the X will change to a +, to show that you can add the command to the toolbar. A vertical I will show where the button will be inserted.
- Drop the button into your preferred position. If you change your mind you can drag it along the toolbar to another position.
- If you are happy with the button, close the Customize dialog box and test it!
Changing the Appearance of a Button
The Save As... button doesn't have an picture, and so the button displays the name of the command which takes-up a lot of room and looks out of place. You can change it to display a picture quite easily.
- Make sure the Customize dialog box is open (Tools - Customize).
- Point to the button you want to change and click with the right mouse-button. You'll get a menu listing commands you can give to change the button:
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- Name: The text displayed is shown in the name box. If appropriate, change the text by typing the new name in the box.
- Default Style/Text Only: If you want the button to only show the picture, select Default Style, if you want to show the Name of the button choose Text Only. You can show both by choosing Text and Image.
- Change button image: Choose one of 36 pictures to illustrate your button.
- Edit button image: Create your own image or amend the current one to make it more illustrative of the button's command.
Notes About Adding Buttons
The different programs have different categories of commands, and Word has a wider choice that Excel or Powerpoint. Macros is one of the categories on the programs have, so any macro you have created can be added to a toolbar button.
To remove a button, make sure you have have the Customize dialog box open and drag it off the toolbar (look for the X).
Take a quick look through some of the commands available, Close All, Save All, Repeat are all examples of useful commands you may not have even thought of using. In Outlook, there are lots you can choose from too.