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Toolbars
Appearing and Disappearing Toolbars

Toolbars appear across the top of any program and most Windows that you open. They are different from Menus in that Toolbars show the choices you can make by displaying small icons (pictures that act like buttons), rather than using words and menu choices to make selections. One important thing to know is that all Toolbar choices appear in the Menus as well; Toolbars are for convenience and to group like commands in one place.

Not all Toolbars are displayed all the time in all programs. When you first start many programs, such as Internet Explorer, Word, or Excel, only basic toolbars and buttons are displayed. In Microsoft’s Office 2000 programs, the commands and buttons you use most frequently are automatically displayed as personalized choices.

Lost Toolbars

Because so many programs offer ways to move, deactivate, or configure their Toolbars, inexperienced users sometimes hide their Toolbars or change them without meaning to. If you lose your Toolbars, knowing some of the ways in which programs allow you to manipulate Toolbars should help you to return your Toolbars to the configurations you prefer.

Turning Toolbars On and Off

In Microsoft Internet Explorer and many other programs, right-click on any Toolbar or Menu at the top of the screen, or click on the View command in the Menu and select Toolbars. A pop-up Menu appears with a number of choices. These are additional Toolbars available for your use. The one(s) in use will have a check mark to their left. By highlighting the choice you want and left clicking, you will activate the chosen Toolbar. (To deactivate a Toolbar, right-click again on any Toolbar to return to the Menu and select the Toolbar you wish to hide.)

Making Toolbar choices can be different in different programs. In AOL, for instance, the ability to change Toolbar preferences is made available in My AOL under Preferences.  

What toolbars you want to display will vary. Turn a number of them on and off until you have the toolbars you want displayed. NOTE: Most users want the Standard Toolbar and Address Bar turned on in Internet Explorer. And the Standard and Formatting Toolbars in Microsoft Office programs such as Word and Excel.

To learn the specifics of dealing with Toolbars in your program, go to the Help Menu of the program and search for information on Toolbars and/or Preferences.

Floating and Docked Toolbars

In some programs, when you make a Toolbar appear, it will either be Docked, which is displayed across the top of the screen like the current toolbars, or Floating, which means displayed on its own somewhere, floating over the screen’s work area. To dock a Floating Toolbar, left-click on the colored bar at the top of the Toolbar and, holding the Left mouse button down, move the cursor and the Toolbar to the top, sides, or bottom of the screen until it appears as a regular Toolbar. Release the Left mouse button. The Toolbar is now docked. 

To make a docked Toolbar into a Floating Toolbar, position the cursor on the raised gray line at the leftmost end (or at the top, in the case of a Toolbar docked at the side screen) of the Toolbar until the cursor becomes a black, four-headed arrow. Left-click and, holding the Left mouse button down, move the Toolbar to the desired position on the screen. Release the Left mouse button. The Toolbar is now displayed in its own floating window. Left-click on the X in the upper right hand corner to deactivate a Floating Toolbar.

Overlapping Toolbars

In Microsoft’s Office programs, two Toolbars are sometimes overlapped within the same row. This is the case when you note that the raised gray line (see image below). Actually, two toolbars are overlapping. You can control the extent of the overlap or separate the two Toolbars entirely. Position the cursor over the raised gray line at the beginning of the second Toolbar until it becomes a four-headed black arrow, then left-click on the raised gray line at beginning of the second Toolbar and, holding the Left mouse button down, move the cursor and reposition the Toolbar as you wish.


These toolbars are overlapped.

These are the same toolbars without overlapping.

More Toolbar Choices

At the end of Toolbars in many programs there may be an arrow or icon indicating that more Toolbar choices can be made by clicking on the arrow. (This can be seen in the image above. Note the two >> symbols just below the red arrow.) These choices can include adding or subtracting Toolbar buttons, or customizing the Toolbar in other ways.

NOTE: This frequently happens in Internet Explorer if your buttons are set as large or if your resolution is set low. Just click on the >> to see the choices hidden from you

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