How-to: Customize Your Toolbars for Keyboard Shortcuts : Texxors.com

How-to: Customize Your Toolbars for Keyboard Shortcuts

March 18, 2007 Posted by Beth in : How-to, Tips , trackback, Email this post

If you like to use keyboard shortcuts, you know that some keyboard shortcuts aren’t really that “short.” What’s that? Is CTRL+S the extent of your shortcut skills? If you want to learn some cool keyboard shortcuts before you start customizing check out The Best Keyboard Shortcuts You’re Not Using. Anyway, let’s say you’re in Excel and you want to color your text red. You have to select the cell, press Ctrl+1 to open the Format Cells menu, and use the right arrow to move to the Font screen. Then you use Tab a bunch or Alt+C to move to the color drop-down list, use the down arrow a few times to select red, and press Enter. Then you Tab to OK, and press Enter again. That sure was quick wasn’t it? Err, yeah. Is that really faster than using a mouse? There’s gotta be a better way!

Luckily, there is. You know your toolbars? Those cute little things at the top of your screen with the tiny icons? Well despite what your mother told you, you don’t have to accept the default configuration. Instead, you can customize the toolbars to move the icons you use the most to the front. Then you can use keyboard shortcuts to access them lickity split. And if there’s something you need that’s not on the toolbar? You can add it. Here’s how.

BTW, although we’re doing this to make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts, you actually need to use your mouse for this part. Ironic isn’t it?

A. OPEN THE CUSTOMIZE DIALOG BOX
Go to the Tools menu and select Customize, or right-click anywhere in your menu bar or toolbars and select Customize.

B. MOVE BUTTONS ON A TOOLBAR
1. With the Customize dialog box open, grab a button on the toolbar and drag & drop it to its new location, like the very first icon on your first toolbar. For example, I’ve moved Font color and Fill color up front because I use them often.
2. Repeat for all your favorites, moving them to the first spots on the toolbars.

C. ADD BUTTONS TO A TOOLBAR
1. On the Customize dialog box, move to the Command tab.
2. Look through the Categories and their Commands to find the commands you want (for example, I have Format > Right Border, Format > Top Border, Edit > Paste Values, and Edit > Select Visible Cells on my toolbars).
3. Click on the command in the Commands list and drag it to the right spot on your toolbar.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as necessary.

D. CLOSE THE CUSTOMIZE DIALOG BOX

E. USE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS TO ACCESS YOUR MOVED ICONS
1. Press Alt to move to the menu bar, then let go.
2. Press Ctrl+Tab to move to the first toolbar. (Need to move to another toolbar? Keep pressing Ctrl+Tab to move between toolbars.)
3. Use your right arrow key to move to the icon you need.

Customizing Toolbars

Note: This article mostly applies to Windows versions of Office 2003 and earlier. Things may be different for other platforms and versions. I use Excel for my examples, but you can use this in Word and PowerPoint too. Keyboard shortcuts are written using + to show when keys should be pressed at the same time.