Microsoft Excel: Working With Toolbars

By Author: Chris Le Roy
Total Articles: 92
Comment this article

Toolbars are a crucial part of the Microsoft Excel 2003 Application and assist in improving your productivity and efficiency in the application. Microsoft Excel contains a range of toolbars that you can use for a variety of different tasks. The toolbar is simply a small bar that contains a variety of buttons that contain a graphic image called an Icon. Each button represents one single command on the toolbar. To utilise a button all you need to do is to position your mouse pointer over the button and click once with your left mouse button.

The Microsoft Excel application shows by default two key toolbars and they are the Standard Toolbar and the Formatting Toolbar. These are the most common toolbars that you will utilise in Microsoft Excel and contain key commands. After your initial installation of the Microsoft Excel application you will find that these two toolbars are in fact located on the one line. However you can change their position and reposition the toolbars on the screen.

To move a toolbar, position your mouse pointer over the little blue four dotted bar at the start of the toolbar. Hold your left ...
... mouse button down and then drag. Using this technique, you can drag the toolbar either down from its current position under the Menu bar or you can drag it to the left or right.

When you resize the toolbar to the left or right, you will notice that some of the icons from either toolbar will appear and disappear. This is by design. Essentially the application adjusts the size of the toolbar and changes the icons based on those that fit on the resized toolbar.

Another fantastic tool included with the toolbar is the ability to identify what the toolbar button does just by holding your mouse over the icon. When you do this, a Tool Tip appears just like the one shown here - .

Microsoft provides an option in the Customize dialogue box, which is found under the Tools menu to show both the Standard toolbar and the Formatting toolbar by default. However to have the toolbars on one row you must deselect the Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows command.

If you want the two Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows you select the check box of the command Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows command.

There are a variety of toolbars in the Microsoft Excel application and to display (or hide) those toolbars you must first go to the View menu and then choose Toolbars. When you view the menu there is some important information you must be aware of.

If there is a tick next to one of the toolbar names then this indicates that the toolbar is already visible. Alternatively, no tick indicates that the toolbar is hidden.

To turn a toolbar on, click once with your left mouse button on the toolbar name. If you want to turn the toolbar off, click on the toolbar name once again.

You will find that most toolbars will be located toward the top of the screen however you can reposition the toolbar anywhere on the screen.

Toolbars are known to be in two modes - Docked Mode and Floating Mode. When a toolbar is in Floating Mode you can reposition it on the screen by moving your mouse pointer into the Title bar, holding your left mouse button down and dragging it to where you would like it to go.

If you would like to quickly dock your floating toolbar back to where it was originally docked, just Double Click on the Toolbars Title bar.