Excel 2000 in a Nutshell

Customizing in Excel

Although adaptive menus provide some customization of your environment by automatically suppressing the options you don’t use, they are not the only type of customization available within Excel. By using the Tools → Customize command you can customize your Excel environment even more. Keep in mind that as you make some of these customizations some of the options selected affect all Office programs; others -- such as toolbar and menu customizations -- remain local to the program they are used in.

Note

Make sure you check out the context menus that are available throughout Excel. These menus display when you right-click on a particular location. They contain options that are relevant to your current location. For example, if you right-click on a cell you see options for cutting, copying, pasting, adding a comment, formatting the cell, etc.

Use the Tools → Customize command to perform three different types of customizations to your Excel environment:

Tools → Customize → Options

Set general customization options that govern how Excel’s personalized (adaptive) menus work and how icons appear on menus and toolbars.

Tools → Customize → Toolbars

Use this tab to create new toolbars, rename and delete existing toolbars, and reset default toolbars.

Tools → Customize → Commands

This tab lets you add, remove, and modify commands in Excel’s menus and toolbars. It’s also used to create new menus.

Quick Access to the Customize Dialog

Access the Customize dialog quickly by right-clicking ...