Office 2016 For Seniors For Dummies (2016)

Appendix A

Customizing Office Applications

Get ready to . . .

Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

Customize the Status Bar

Set Program Options

Set Outlook Options

People have different ideas about what constitutes the “best” way for a program to operate. For every feature that one person finds ideal, someone else finds that same feature very annoying. That’s why Microsoft Office 2016 has a variety of options you can customize to make the applications work more like you want.

In this appendix, I show you how to customize the Quick Access toolbar and the status bar in all the Office applications. (The process works basically the same in all of them.) Then I go through some of the most common program options in each application.

Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access toolbar is the small toolbar immediately above the File tab in each of the Office applications. By default, the Quick Access toolbar contains only a few buttons.

One of the handiest things about the Quick Access toolbar is that it’s available no matter which tab you’re on.

If you find yourself using a button frequently (other than one of the default buttons), consider placing it on the Quick Access toolbar so you don’t have to switch tabs all the time.

Here’s how to add a command to the Quick Access toolbar:

1. Right-click the button or other control. A shortcut menu opens.

2. Choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

Another use for the Quick Access toolbar is to add buttons for commands that don’t appear on any of the tabs. (Yes, there are many such commands. Most of them are carryovers from previous versions of the software, but some are new features that are rather obscure.)

To browse the available commands and add any to the Quick Access toolbar (including commands not already on the Ribbon), follow these steps:

1. Choose File ⇒ Options. An Options dialog box appears for that application.

2. Click Quick Access Toolbar in the bar at the left. Two columns of commands appear in the middle of the window. The left column holds the commands you can add, and the right column holds the commands already on the Quick Access toolbar. See Figure A-1.

3. At the top of the left list, open the drop-down menu and choose what commands you want to see on the list:

· Popular Commands: A selection of the most commonly used commands

· Commands Not in the Ribbon: Commands that have no equivalent on any tab

Why would an application have a command that’s not in the Ribbon? There are two main reasons. One is that the command was featured in an earlier version of the application but was removed in 2016, and it is available for those who still want to use it. Other commands may only be available several menu levels deep, or only in a dialog box; making them available to add to the QAT enables users to get faster access to them.

· All Commands: A list of all available commands

· Macros: Any macros (recorded scripts) that have been stored in the active file or template

4. Click a command in the left list and then click the Add button in the middle to move it to the list on the right. Repeat as desired to add more commands.

5. When finished, click OK.

Figure A-1

To remove buttons from the Quick Access toolbar, return to the Quick Access Toolbar list (refer to Figure A-1), click a button’s name in the right column, and then click the Remove button in the middle. Or take the easy way: Just right-click the button on the Quick Access toolbar and then choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar from the menu that appears.

Customize the Status Bar

The status bar is the thin bar along the bottom of the application window. It contains View buttons (for switching between views), the Zoom slider, and perhaps a few other items, depending on the settings.

Just like the Quick Access toolbar, you can customize the status bar:

1. Right-click the status bar. On the shortcut menu that appears is a list of all the items that the status bar can contain. The ones with check marks next to them are already displayed.

2. Click an item to toggle it on or off. See Figure A-2.

Figure A-2

Set Program Options

So many options are available in each application that it would take a much larger book to cover them all. In this appendix, I review a few of my favorite options in Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Outlook has many options that it doesn’t share with the other applications, so I provide extra coverage of Outlook separately later in this appendix.

For each application, access the options by clicking the File button and then click the Options command. Then click a category at the left to display a page of options. See Figure A-3.

Figure A-3

Use Table A-1 as a handy guide to customize Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Items marked with an asterisk (*) are not available in Outlook.

Table A-1 Common Options

Set Outlook Options

Outlook has many options that it doesn’t share with the other Office applications, because its functionality is so different. To adjust those options, choose Office ⇒ Options. Then, in the Outlook Options dialog box that opens, click a tab and select options on that tab.

Table A-2 lists some of the most common options you can set in Outlook.

Table A-2 Common Options in Outlook