Make Your Own Toolbar Menus

I use some commands repeatedly, but many of them are not housed on the same toolbar menu—which means I waste lots of time moving my cursor from one end of the toolbar to the other to click on icons I need. Both my very tired mouse and I would appreciate some way to speed this operation.

I assume you’ve thought of the obvious: placing those favorite tools as stand-alone icons right in the toolbar. And I assume you want to avoid having the toolbar (which, when full, expands to accommodate new icons) get so fat and crowded that you can’t easily find the ones you want. So let’s dismiss that idea and instead create a custom menu that contains just your favorite tools. You can do that in any Microsoft application—Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Go to the toolbar and click on Tools, Customize and under Categories, select New Menu. Click on it and it will be copied to the Commands box.

Now drag the New Menu icon to where you want it to appear on your toolbar and click on the Modify Selection button. Select Name: New Menu.

Give it a name and press Enter.

Now, to populate your new menu with your favorite commands, once again click on Tools, Customize and under Categories select the command icons you want, one at a time, and drag them to your menu. Finally click on Close.

Consider making several custom menus—each with a set of commands you need for each major activity you undertake.