Toolbars and Menus Made to Order

When the software engineers at Microsoft put together the Excel toolbars and menus, they tried to select the buttons and options that most users need most of the time. Of course, you may very well not be "most users" when it comes to using Excel and wish that they had included command options that currently are not there and left out others that you rarely use.

The good news is that you can easily make the program more efficient by customizing any of the existing toolbars and pull-down menus so that they consist of just the options you use in the order in which you'd like to see them. To customize a built-in Excel toolbar, you follow these steps:

1. Choose View> Toolbars> Customize to open the Customize dialog box.
   
   
2. If the toolbar you want to customize is not already displayed on the screen, select the Toolbars tab in the Customize dialog box and then select that toolbar's check box.
   
   
3. To add a new button to the toolbar now displayed, select the Commands tab in the Customize dialog box and then select the desired command category in the Categories list box. Scroll to the command's icon in the Commands list box and then drag the icon from the Customize dialog box to its new place on the toolbar.
   You can release the mouse button as soon as the box with the + (plus) appears on the mouse pointer. Excel indicates where the new button will be inserted on the toolbar by displaying the bold I-beam-type indicator on the toolbar.
   
   To delete a button from the toolbar, drag its button from the toolbar, and then when the box with the X in it appears at the mouse pointer, release the mouse button.
   
   
4. To rearrange the buttons on the toolbar, drag the button icon to its new position on the bar (indicated by the bold I-beam-type indicator).
   
   
5. To add a vertical separator bar that groups the buttons, locate the button in front of which the separator will be inserted and then drag that button slightly to the right. As soon as you release the mouse button, the separator bar appears.
   
   To remove a vertical separator, drag the button that the separator is directly in front of to the left until the bar disappears.
   
   
6. After you finish customizing the toolbar, click the Close button to close the dialog box and return the functionality to the toolbars and menus.

The steps for customizing one of Excel's pull-down menus are the same as those for customizing a toolbar, except that after opening the Customize dialog box and selecting the Commands tab, you must choose the name of the menu you want to customize. The steps for adding commands, deleting menu items, and rearranging them on a particular menu are the same as those for doing these things to a toolbar: just keep in mind that the bold, I-beam-type indicator shows you where the command you add will be inserted on the pull-down menu.

You can use the controls in the Rearrange Commands dialog box to quickly add, delete, or modify the order of the buttons on any Excel toolbar or items on any of its pull-down menus. To open this dialog box, click the Rearrange Commands button on the Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

To customize a menu or toolbar in the Rearrange Commands dialog box, follow these steps:

1. If you are customizing a pull-down menu, click the Menu Bar option button and then select the pull-down menu name in its drop-down list box. If you are customizing a toolbar, click the Toolbar option button and then select the toolbar name in its drop-down list box.
   Excel displays all the menu items or toolbar buttons for the menu or toolbar you selected in their current order.
   
   
2. To add an item or button, click the menu item or button in front of which you want to insert the new button and then click the Add button. In the Add Command dialog box that appears, select the option you want added and click OK.
   
   
3. To delete an item or button, select it in the Rearrange Commands dialog box and then click the Delete button.
   
   
4. To modify the position of an item or button, select it in the Rearrange Commands dialog box and then click the Move Up or Move Down button until the item or button appears in the desired position.
   
   
5. After you finish customizing your menu or toolbar, click the Close button in the Rearrange Commands dialog box and then click the Close button in the Customize dialog box.