Resetting Word Menus

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 13, 2025)

Word makes it easy to customize virtually everything you see on your screen. It is possible, for instance, to change the options that appear on the menus used by Word. If you run across a system in which the menus have been changed, then you can change them back by following these steps:

Choose the Customize option from the Tools menu. Word displays the Customize dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Customize dialog box.

With the Customize dialog box still open, right-click on the actual menu that you want to reset. (Click on the actual menu at the top of the program Window, not within the dialog box.) Word displays a Context menu. If you only want to reset a sub-menu, left click on the major menu and then right-click on the sub-menu.
Choose Reset from the Context menu. The menu options are returned to their default settings.
Close the Customize dialog box.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (382) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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