iTechtalk

Anthony

To edit the content of the Standard Buttons toolbar, choose View, Toolbars, Customize (or right-click the toolbar and choose Customize from the shortcut menu). To add a button to the toolbar, drag it from the Available Toolbar Buttons window of the Customize Toolbar dialog box, shown in Figure, to the location of your choice in the Current Toolbar Buttons window. To remove an item, select it in the right window and click Remove. To change the order in which toolbar buttons appear, drag them upward or downward within the Current Toolbar Buttons window. If you use a truncated toolbar, you will probably want to make sure that the buttons you use most often are in the part of the toolbar that’s always visible.


Figure. The Customize Toolbar dialog box lets you populate the Standard Buttons toolbar with only those tools that you find most useful.

Note that the Standard Buttons toolbar is designed to be extensible. That is, other applications can add their own tools to it. For example, some of the buttons on the toolbar’s expanded palette were added by Microsoft Encarta. You can add and remove such application-specific buttons via the Customize Toolbar dialog box, exactly as you would add or remove an Internet Explorer button.

Customizing the Links Toolbar

The Links toolbar is designed to hold shortcuts to your mainly favorite—the Web sites you use every day. Windows primarily populates it with links to various Microsoft sites, which possibly you don’t require. You can alter those. To remove an item from the Links toolbar, right-click it and select Delete from the shortcut menu.

The simplest way to add a shortcut to a favorite Web site is as follows:

1. Display the Web site.

2. Drag the Internet Explorer icon at the left edge of the Address bar and drop it on the Links toolbar.

3. Right-click the new Links item, choose Rename from the shortcut menu, and then type a short name.

The final step is optional, but toolbar real estate is limited, and you don’t need to fill the space with a wordy shortcut name.