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Microsoft does a lot of research (called usability
studies) on how to make the Microsoft Word
interface more user-friendly and "intelligent." Most people
are content to live with the same screen Microsoft
gave them day after day. But it doesn't have to be
that way. We're all individuals doing a myriad of
different tasks, so one size can't possibly fit all! You
can change most elements of the Word screen to
reflect the way you use Word. In fact, it's easy to
customize Word … if you just know how.
A little time spent configuring Word can reap
big rewards later. You can change virtually all of
Word's menus, toolbars, and even some of the
commands themselves to make your own custom solutions.
Know Your Options
Before you go berserk changing the interface,
you may want to look at a few of the simple options
you can change in the Options dialog box. Choose Tools|Options and click the View tab if it isn't
already selected. Each little box turns options on
and off—if there's a checkmark in the box, the option
is on; if not, the option is off. For example, if you
have a tiny monitor, maybe you don't want quite so
much stuff cluttering up your workspace. In the View
tab, you can click options to tell Word not to show
the Status Bar or the Horizontal and Vertical scroll
bars. Even though you may need to learn the
keyboard navigation commands, on a tiny laptop screen or
a 14-inch monitor, having that extra screen real
estate can be crucial to getting your work done.
Many people are annoyed by the squiggly lines
under text that indicate spelling mistakes. (Okay,
so you're a rotten speller and maybe you don't
want Word harassing you about it.) To turn off
automatic spell checking, click the Spelling & Grammar tab
and remove the checkmark next to Check spelling as
you type. By spending just a little time in the Options
dialog box configuring your Word world, you can save
a lot of time (and aggravation) later.
Resistance is Not Futile
Another way to modify your user interface is to
add and remove the toolbars on your screen. Choose Tools|Customize, and you see the Customize
dialog box, which has three tabs. In the Toolbars tab,
you can click to add or remove checkmarks to tell
Word to display or hide any toolbar. (Hint: resist the
temptation to add 15 toolbars to your screen—it just
never works out well.) In the Customize dialog box,
you also can create new custom toolbars, rename
custom toolbars, delete custom toolbars, or reset
everything to the setup Word had when it was installed.
So at this point, you may be wondering, "what's
a custom toolbar?" A custom toolbar is a toolbar
you create yourself. For example, if you have a lot of
special commands you use regularly, you may want
to put them all in one place so you can get at
them more easily. Custom toolbars are the perfect place
to store the buttons for all your favorite
commands. The toolbars can then be copied from one file to
another using the Organizer. (Choose
Tools|Templates and Add-Ins and click the Organizer button.)
If you create special toolbars, remember to
think about the template they will be stored in. Unless
you specify differently, all the changes you make to
your toolbars and settings are saved in the
Normal.dot template (you see the name shown in the list at
the bottom). Normal.dot is a special template
because anything saved in it is always available while
you're working in Word. If you have commands that
you only use in a particular type of document, you
also may decide to save your toolbars in a particular
template or even in one particular document.
To create a new toolbar, click the New button
and give the toolbar a name. A tiny toolbar appears
on your screen. Now click the Commands tab and
click and drag commands to your new toolbar.
Magically, they glue themselves onto the toolbar (see Figure
1 below).
Figure 1. In the Customize dialog box, click and drag commands to a toolbar.
To remove a button, you just drag it off the
toolbar. (Remember that all this clicking and dragging to
add and remove buttons only works when the
Customize dialog box is open!)
Using the Commands tab you can place
practically any command available in the Word environment
on any toolbar or menu simply by dragging it to the
position where you want it. You can add buttons to
the built-in toolbars the same way you add them to
custom toolbars—just click and drag. Plus, you may
notice that more than just the menu commands
you're accustomed to seeing are available on the list of
commands. Scroll down the Categories list and you'll
see you can select any macros, styles, AutoText
entries, or fonts. Click the All Commands category and
take a quick browse through the category. This little
excursion can be extremely enlightening; you'll
find things there you never knew existed, such as a
command called ToolsCalculate. This little gem was standard issue in Word 2.0, but was relegated to
obscurity in later versions. To use it, select any
mathematical calculation, run the command, and the result appears in the status bar.
In addition to toolbars and menus, you also can change the shortcut (right-click) menus.
Microsoft doesn't want to overwhelm you with choices
when you right-click in your document, so not all
possible commands are included—and the one you want
may be missing! For example, if you regularly use the
Format Painter command to copy the format applied
to some text to other places in the document, it
makes sense to have the command available when you
right-click in a text selection. To change it:
- In the Toolbars tab of the Customize dialog
box, add a checkmark next to Shortcut Menus.
- On the Shortcut Menus toolbar, click Text in
the menu, then Text in the list. A submenu appears.
- Switch to the Commands tab in the dialog box.
- Click the Format category; then from the
Commands list, drag the Format Painter command to the desired place on the Text submenu.
Now every time you right click over text, you can
access the Format Painter command.
Create Shortcuts
After staring at the Customize dialog box for a
while, you probably noticed the Keyboard button. As
you might have guessed, you click this button to
create keyboard shortcuts. In addition to the categories
you saw in the Commands tab, this list also
includes Common Symbols, such as the Em Dash. When
you click any entry in the list, you see the key
shortcut(s) currently assigned to it, if any. Click in the Press
new shortcut key box, then press the key
combination you'd like to assign to a command. If the shortcut
is already in use, a message appears under the box.
You confirm your choice by clicking Assign, or delete
your entry and try again. (If you use the
Insert|Symbol command, you also can assign keyboard shortcuts
by clicking the Shortcut Key button in the Symbol
dialog box.) If you forget the shortcuts you've assigned,
you can choose File|Print and select Key
assignments from the Print what drop-down list, and Word
prints a list.
After you've made changes and go to exit Word,
a dialog box may appear asking if you want to save changes to Normal.dot. (The dialog box appears
if you have the Prompt to save Normal template
option set in the Save tab of the Options dialog box.)
If you've customized your Word interface and want
to keep the settings, be sure to click Yes. On the
other hand, if you've made a huge mess, just click No
to throw them all away.
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