Tip of the day: Disabling “personalized” Office menus

Office XP and Office 2003 share a feature that is supposed to reduce clutter but instead increases confusion. I’m referring, of course, to the dreaded personalized menus and toolbars feature.

Using default settings, Office menus and toolbars change dynamically as you use each program. If there isn’t enough room on the screen for all the buttons on a toolbar, the program hides some buttons, making sure to display those you’ve used most recently. In the case of menus, the idea is to reduce clutter by showing you only the choices you’re likely to use instead of overwhelming you with a long menu containing many choices. Here’s what it looks like:

See the chevron – the double arrow at the bottom of the menu? That’s your clue that there are more choices available on this menu than you can see. Click the chevron and the full menu drops down.

In practice, personalized menus are confusing to novices and experts. Why do the choices on the menus keep disappearing? Where is the option that’s supposed to be on the current menu? I recommend you configure Office to show full menus all the time. The good news is that one setting applies to all Office programs, so the fix is quick and easy. Here’s what to do:

1. In any Office program, choose Tools, Customize.
2. Click the Options tab in the Customize dialog box and select the Always show full menus check box.
3. Click Close.

You’re done. (For a more complete discussion of the ins and outs of this feature and other aspects of the Office interface, pick up a copy of Special Edition Using Office 2003 or Special Edition Using Office XP and read Chapter 2, “Customizing the Office Interface.”)

What if you find yourself working at someone else’s computer, where you’re reluctant to tamper with their settings? Just double-click a top-level menu choice (File, Edit, and so on) when you use an Office program. This shortcut immediately opens the full menu, just as if you had clicked the chevron.