Customizing a Toolbar

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 6, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Word allows you quite a bit of latitude in how you can customize the program to reflect how you want to do your work. One of the elements of the program you can change is the toolbars. You can add, remove, or edit buttons that appear on any toolbar.

To customize a toolbar, follow these steps:

Choose Customize from the Tools menu. Word displays the Customize dialog box.
Make sure the Toolbars tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Toolbars tab of the Customize dialog box.

In the list of toolbars, make sure the toolbars you want to edit are selected.
Click on the Commands tab. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

In the list of Categories, select the major category that contains the command you want to add to the toolbar. For instance, if you want to add one of your macros to the toolbar, you would choose Macros in the list of Categories.
In the list of Commands, select the command you want to add to the toolbar.
Use the mouse to drag the command from the Commands list to its new location on the toolbar. When you release the mouse button, the icon or wording for the command appears.
Repeat steps 5 through 7 to add new toolbar commands.
Click on Close to dismiss 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 (1675) 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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Paragraph Formatting Shortcuts

Paragraphs are one of the elemental building blocks in a Word document. Formatting those paragraphs is easy to do if you ...

Discover More

Automatically Breaking Text

Want to convert the text in a cell so that it wraps after every word? You could edit the cell and press Alt+Enter after ...

Discover More

Replacing Some Formulas with the Formula Results

Macros are often used to process the data stored in a worksheet. Some of these processing needs can be pretty specific to ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Resetting Toolbars to Their Default

Customize Word enough, and you may at some point want to set the toolbars back to their original condition. Here's how to ...

Discover More

Changing Toolbar Location

If you don't like where your toolbars are located, just move them around.

Discover More

Displaying the Outlining Toolbar by Default

The Outlining toolbar contains tools that are helpful to use, even if you aren't working on your document's outline. This ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 6 - 0?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.