Changing ToolTips for a Macro Button

Calvin has a number of custom buttons on his toolbars, each of them assigned to a macro. He would like to change the ToolTip that appears when he positions the mouse pointer over the buttons. He wonders how he goes about changing the ToolTip associated with a macro button.

Many people think that you can change the ToolTip by simply following these steps:

1. Choose Customize from the Tools menu. Word displays the Customize dialog box.
2. Right-click on the toolbar button. Word displays a palette of options. (Make sure you right-click on the actual button, not on anything within the Customize dialog box.)
3. Click the Name option and change it.
4. Close the Customize dialog box.

These steps won't do it, however. What this changes is the name that appears if you display command names on the toolbars. If you want to change the ToolTip (which appears when you hover the mouse pointer over the button), you need to use a macro. Microsoft makes this clear in this Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171595

The macro provided in the article is this one:

Sub ChangeToolTip()
    With CommandBars("Standard") ' The name of your toolbar
        With .Controls("My Custom Button") ' The name of the button
            .TooltipText = "My Custom Tip" ' The ToolTip text
        End With
    End With 
End Sub

In order to use the macro, all you need to do is change the three options called out by the comments—the name of the toolbar, the name of the button, and the text you want used for the ToolTip.

If you are changing the ToolTip for a built-in button, you only need to run the macro once; Word remembers the ToolTip from that point forward. If you are changing the ToolTip for a button that is only visible when certain templates are open, you'll want to run the macro when that template is loaded. Save the template, and then you won't need to run the macro any more.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10508) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Changing ToolTips for a Macro Button.