One of our clients at the Stony Brook Foundation figured out how to customize her toolbars in Microsoft Excel 2007. She didn’t care for the new tabbed ribbon toolbar. She wanted to revert back to the small icons that she was used to working with on a regular basis in Excel 2003.
When you choose to customize your toolbar, you have your favorite tools handy and they take up less room. You don’t waste time trying to figure out where everything is.
We’re showing these steps in Word, but they will work just the same in Excel and the other Office products.
Step 1: Minimize the ribbon
Right click on the tabbed ribbon toolbar and select "Minimize the Ribbon." You will see it disappear.
Step 2: Show Quick Access Toolbar
Right click where the toolbar used to be and this time select "Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon." You can right click and choose to move your toolbar above or below the Ribbon, it’s up to you.
Step 3: Customize Quick Access Toolbar …
Right click the toolbar a third time and select "Customize Quick Access Toolbar … "
Step 4: Choose the Tools You Want
You will come to a page with two columns where you can add your favorite tools and commands from a list on the left. There is a drop-down menu above the left column that says "Choose commands from" You can pull down "Popular Commands" or "All Commands." Depending what you choose, you will see a different list of tools. "Popular Commands" will let you select the most popular tools for the program you are in (in this case, Word). "All Commands" will give you a list of commands for every program in the Office suite. Select which one fits your needs and then select the tools/commands you want from the left hand column and hit the "Add" button. You will see that tool/command pop up in the right-hand column. These will eventually be the tools on your customized toolbar. If you accidentally select a tool/command that you don’t want, you can select it from the list on the right and hit the "Remove" button."
Step 5: Hit OK and begin using your new toolbar
When you are satisfied with your list of tools/commands, hit OK and begin using your new toolbar. If you ever want the tabbed ribbon toolbar back, just right click on your customized toolbar and deselect "Minimize the Ribbon."
Comments 6
thx you very much. this helped me too.
Posted 21 Oct 2007 at 4:42 pm ¶Great. Glad to hear you found this post useful.
Here’s another useful site.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx#1
It includes links to guides for each Office program to help you find all menu and toolbar commands in 2007.
Posted 22 Oct 2007 at 10:21 am ¶The “mapping workbooks” are Excel documents which you will find helpful.
Then there’s the interactive guides for more of a hands-on experience.
Check it out….
Great tip. Thanks I’ve just installed Office 2007 and I’m getting used to it. It’s definitely better than previous versions.
Posted 01 Jun 2008 at 7:30 am ¶Very useful information and the link on Office 2007. Unfortunately this doesn’t work with Word 2008, do you have any tips for that? Thanks again.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 3:43 pm ¶Very useful information and the link on Office 2007. Unfortunately this doesn’t work with Word 2008, do you have any tips for that? Thanks again.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 3:43 pm ¶This is a nice tip, but isn’t it pathetic that Microsoft couldn’t be bothered to provide 2003-like toolbars and has now foisted this task on its customers, and worse their MVP sycophants point you to an add-in to customize the ribbon. I don’t remember MSFT discounting Office 2007 to compensate for these shortcomings…
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 6:41 pm ¶Post a Comment