Creating and Customizing Menus

Creating and Customizing Menus

Menus are simply toolbars with a different presentation style, and they can contain commands or other menus. Although toolbars are thriftier with space, menus can display a description of the commands or submenus.

Tip  

Share modified toolbars and menus       Toolbars and menus belong to the entire Microsoft Project application, not just to a particular project. They are stored in the global template by default. When you modify a toolbar or menu, the modified version is available no matter which project you open .

To share a customized toolbar with someone else, copy it from the global template to a project file and then send the project file to that person. He or she can use the Organizer to copy the toolbar to their global template.

You can add, remove, or rearrange commands and submenus on a menu. You can also specify whether the menu displays buttons or text, and change the appearance of buttons as you do for toolbars.

To add a menu to another menu, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools, Customize, Toolbars.

   The Customize dialog box appears.

2. Click the Commands tab. Scroll to the bottom of the Categories list and click New Menu.

   New Menu is the only command in the New Menu category.

3. Drag the New Menu command to the location where you want to insert it (see Figure 26-6).

   
   Figure 26-6: You can insert a menu or command on a menu bar.

Creating Keyboard Shortcuts

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to any command on a menu. With the Customize dialog box open, right-click the menu or command for which you want to define a keyboard shortcut. In the Name box on the shortcut menu, type an ampersand (&) before the letter you want to use as the shortcut.

Use a different letter for each keyboard shortcut. If you choose a letter that is already in use by another menu entry, you might have to press the letter more than once to select the command you want.

To choose a command using a keyboard shortcut, click a menu to display its commands. Press the shortcut letter for the command you want to select.

 

To add a command to an existing menu, follow these steps:

1. Click the Commands tab in the Customize dialog box.

2. Click the category of the command you want to add to the menu.

3. Drag the command from the command list to its new location.

   Tip  

   Drag menus and commands where you want them       When you drag New Menu or any other command to a menu bar, an I-beam pointer appears. Drag the command until the I-beam is where you want to place the command or menu and then release the mouse button. If you want to insert a command in a menu on the menu bar, drag the command to the menu where you want to insert it. When the commands for that menu appear, drag the mouse pointer to its new location and release the mouse button.

To remove a command from a menu, do the following:

1. Click Tools, Customize, Toolbars.

   The Customize dialog box appears.

2. Right-click the command you want to remove from the menu bar and then click Delete. If you want to remove a command from a pull-down menu underneath the menu bar, navigate to the command you want to remove, right-click it and then click Delete.

   Tip  

   Rearrange commands on a menu       You can rearrange the commands on a menu and modify their properties in the same way that you customize buttons on a toolbar. With the Customize dialog box displayed, drag a command or menu to its new location.

   To modify the properties of a command or menu, right-click it and then click the command you want on the shortcut menu, as described in the section "Changing the Properties of a Toolbar" earlier in this chapter.