MS Office Tip - Save Time by Adding Buttons to your Toolbar

This tip shows you how to add buttons to any toolbar in the Microsoft Office 2003 suite (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, etc.)

Why would you use this, may ask? I have found that adding a couple of buttons to the toolbar for frequently used commands speeds up my productivity. A perfect example, from Microsoft Excel, is the button to delete a row from a spreadsheet. Clicking on a button is a lot faster than having to go through the Edit menu each time I need to remove a row.

Here are the instructions for adding the Insert Rows button to your toolbar. Although this is an Excel command, similar steps will work for all MS Office programs.

• Right click in the blue area to the right of any of your toolbars.
  
  
• Click on Customize.
  
  
• When the dialog box pops up, click on the Commands tab.
  
  
• Under the Categories list box, click on Edit.
  
  
• Scroll down the Commands list box until you come to Delete Rows
  
  
• Click on Delete Rows and drag it to any toolbar.

Voila! You're done. The next time you need to delete a row, simply click on the button you've added to your toolbar.

Now, go and experiment to see how many buttons you can add to your existing Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint or Publisher toolbars to save you tons of time.

MS Publisher / WordArt Tip

To quickly change the fill or outline color of a WordArt object, select the object, and then click the fill or outline color buttons on the toolbar. The buttons are shown below.

Spell Check WordArt (Publisher)

Works with Microsoft Publisher 2000 and 2003


Publisher is a Microsoft desktop publishing software program used to create flyers, brochures, business cards and other marketing materials. I stumbled on Publisher in my local office supply store several years ago, and have not regretted the money invested in purchasing this program.

Microsoft Publisher comes with a feature called WordArt, which is also available in Microsoft Word. WordArt allows you to make special effects for text -- it ssentially turns text into a graphic. The WordArt gallery is shown below.



WordArt is often used to create headlines in flyers, brochures, etc.

Those of you who use Publisher know that Publisher will spell check your regular text, but not WordArt.

Here is a quick way to spell check your WordArt items in Publisher.

• Type the text you want to use to create a WordArt Object as regular text.
• Run spell check and make the corrections.
• Highlight the text.
• Click on the WordArt button on your toolbar. The button is shown below:
  
  
• Publisher automatically creates a WordArt tem out of the selected text.
• Complete the process by editing the style of your WordArt object to fit your requirements.