Chapter 15: Resolving Issues Related to Application Customization

Overview

The Resolving Issues Related to Application Customization objective domain focuses on customizing Microsoft Office applications, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Outlook Express. The objective domain also covers customizing the Microsoft Windows XP operating system in support of running applications. You will make these customizations mostly to satisfy user requests for helping make applications work best to suit user needs.

The various applications that make up Microsoft Office 2003, including Word 2003, Outlook 2003, Excel 2003, and PowerPoint 2003, are highly customizable. Aside from setting standard program options that control how the programs themselves behave, you can also control which menus and toolbars are displayed and even which commands appear on those menus and toolbars. You can even create custom toolbars and menus and then populate them with just the right commands and macros to help users get their jobs done quickly and easily.

Internet Explorer also provides a high degree of customizability. You can control which buttons appear on the toolbars, the size of those buttons, and whether names of buttons are displayed. You can customize the Internet Explorer home page, control how temporary Internet files are stored and used, set up additional languages, and even control the way text appears on Web pages. You can also configure content, privacy, and security options to suit the user.

Outlook Express also provides a number of ways to customize its interface. As with Internet Explorer, you can control which buttons appear on the Outlook Express toolbar and how those buttons look. You can change text sizes and other formatting options for viewing messages, change the basic layout of elements in the Outlook Express window, and configure many options that control how e-mail and newsgroup information is downloaded and presented.

Finally, the Windows XP interface provides a greater degree of customization than any version of Windows to date. You can control many options concerning the Start menu, taskbar, and notification area that make finding, running, and switching between applications easy.