Customizing Toolbars and Menu Bars

Microsoft Project is designed to create an environment that supports the individual way you use the program. As you work in Project, you’ll develop your own approach to routine project tasks, and you may find a need to control which menu options and toolbar buttons are visible. Fortunately for users who want it “my way,” you can customize all of Project’s menu bars, toolbars, and shortcut menus.

For example, when you initially launch Project, the program displays both the Standard and Formatting toolbars, docked together in a single row just below the menu bar. These toolbars display frequently used buttons; those buttons you use most are displayed on the visible part of the toolbar, while
less-used buttons are relegated to a position on the pull-down menu at the end of the toolbar.

For many users, this type of frequently used toolbar helps weed out commands that are rarely used, making the favorite ones readily available. For other users, however, these spontaneously regenerating toolbars represent a bit too much customization. In this section, we’ll show you how to turn off this feature, if that’s what you want to do.

Changing Menu and Toolbar Options

To access options for any menu or toolbar—collectively called command bars—right-click any toolbar or menu bar, and choose Customize from the shortcut menu. (Alternately, you can select Tools Ø Customize Ø Toolbars.) This opens the Customize dialog box; select the Options tab (shown in Figure 23.11) to view the options for menus and toolbars. The following options are available:

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Figure 23.11: Change menu and toolbar options in the Customize dialog box.

Show Standard and Formatting Toolbars on Two Rows Leave unchecked to dock the two toolbars together on a single row. Check this option to stack the toolbars, providing more room to display buttons.

Always Show Full Menus When this option is unchecked, each application shows you a short menu (called a personalized menu) with only those commands you use frequently. Select this option, and you’ll see full menus in Project and all Microsoft Office applications.

Show Full Menus After A Short Delay If you like personalized menus, you will probably want to select this option. When this option is unchecked, you’ll never get to see the items you infrequently use without customizing the menu to add items. Select this option to have the short menus expand if you don’t select an item quickly. (Setting this option in one Microsoft Office application—such as Project—affects all other Office applications.)

Reset My Usage Data For menus to be personalized, there has to be a mechanism for tracking how often you use different menu options and toolbar buttons. Office (and Project) tracks and saves your usage data when you close each application. This button resets the buttons displayed when a toolbar is not wide enough to display all the buttons and the menu commands shown in the personalized menu.

Large Icons Intended for users with restricted vision, these icons are truly large. Just turn them on for a moment, and you’ll either love them or rush to return them to their normal size.

List Font Names In Their Font This option affects only the Font drop-down list on the Formatting toolbar. It makes it easier to choose a font, but you take a bit of performance hit, particularly if you have a large number of fonts installed on your computer.

Show ScreenTips On Toolbars ScreenTips are enabled by default; turning them off here turns them off throughout Microsoft Office.

Short Shortcut Keys in ScreenTips If you enable ScreenTips, you can then choose to show—or not to show—shortcut key combinations when ScreenTips are displayed.

Menu Animations Although interesting initially, these effects (Unfold, Slide, Fade, and Random) can get annoying rather quickly. By default, this option is set to use the animation settings you set within Windows.

After you’ve changed the options, click OK to close the Customize dialog box and apply the options you chose.

Customizing Menus and Toolbars

While the Customize dialog box is open, all displayed command bars are open for editing. You can drag menu items or buttons to new locations to rearrange them, or drop them in the document window to delete them.

Creating a Personalized Menu or Toolbar

To add a new toolbar button or menu command, select the Commands tab of the Customize dialog box, shown in Figure 23.12.

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Figure 23.12: Use the Commands tab to customize toolbars and menus.

Commands are grouped into categories. Choose a category in the Categories pane and then locate the command you want to add in the Commands pane. (Click the Description button to see a brief description of the selected command.) Drag the command onto a toolbar or the menu bar. To add a command to an existing menu, point to the menu and then place the command in the appropriate place when the menu opens.

Each toolbar has its own set of built-in buttons. To quickly add or remove built-in buttons on a toolbar, click the More Buttons drop-down arrow on the right end of any toolbar and choose Add or Remove Buttons from the menu. Buttons displayed on the menu have a check mark. Click the button name to add or remove the button from the toolbar.

Tip 

The default settings for an application’s built-in menu and toolbars are retained even after you customize the menu or toolbar. To return a command bar to its original settings, switch to the Toolbars tab of the Customize dialog box, check the Toolbar(s) you want to change to its original setting, and click Reset.

Creating a New Toolbar

You aren’t limited to using Project’s built-in toolbars. Creating a new toolbar gives you the opportunity to gather all the toolbar buttons you frequently use in one place.

To create an entirely new toolbar, follow these steps:

  1. Select Tools Ø Customize Ø Toolbars to open the Customize dialog box; then select the Toolbars tab (shown in Figure 23.13). All your toolbars as listed; those that are checked are currently displayed onscreen.

    click to expand
    Figure 23.13: Create new toolbars from the Toolbars tab.

  2. Click the New button to display the New Toolbar dialog box.

  3. Enter a name for your toolbar; then click OK.

  4. An empty toolbar now appears on your desktop. To populate the toolbar, drag buttons onto the toolbar from the Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

  5. Click Close to close the Customize dialog box when done.

    Tip 

    To copy a button from an existing toolbar, hold Ctrl while dragging the button.



Mastering Microsoft Project 2002
Mastering Microsoft Project 2002
ISBN: 0782141471
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 241

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