Creating a New Toolbar

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 22, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

As you are customizing Excel to reflect your working habits, there may be times when you want to create your own custom toolbar. You can create a toolbar by following these steps:

  1. Choose Customize from the Tools menu. This displays the Customize dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Toolbars tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Toolbars tab of the Customize dialog box.

  3. Click on New. This displays the New Toolbar dialog box. (See Figure 2.)

    4. Figure 2. The New Toolbar dialog box.

  4. Provide a name for your toolbar in the Toolbar Name box.
  5. Click on OK to close the New Toolbar dialog box. The toolbar appears at the bottom of the list of toolbars on the Toolbars tab of the Customize dialog box. The empty toolbar should also be visible on your screen.
  6. Click on the Commands tab in the Customize dialog box. (See Figure 3.)

    7. Figure 3. The Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

  7. In the list of Categories, select the major category which contains the command you want to add to the new toolbar.
  8. In the list of Commands, select the command you want to add to the toolbar.
  9. Use the mouse to drag the command from the Commands list to its new location on your toolbar. When you release the mouse button, the icon or wording for the command appears.
  10. Repeat steps 7 through 9 to add more toolbar commands.
  11. Click on Close to dismiss the Customize dialog box.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2722) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Self-Aware Macros

Sometimes it may be helpful for a macro to know exactly where it is being executed. This tip provides a way that you can ...

Discover More

Pasting a Comment into Your Document

When developing a document, you may end up with all sorts of comments that you need to deal with. One common task is to ...

Discover More

Combining Worksheets from Many Workbooks

Do you need to pull a particular worksheet out of a group of workbooks and combine those worksheets into a different ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Where is Toolbar Customization Information Stored?

When you make a change to one of Excel's toolbars, do you know where that change is stored? This tip explains the name ...

Discover More

Changing Toolbar Location

Toolbars don't need to be tethered to the top of your program window. Although they are right at home there, you may want ...

Discover More

Buttons for Workbooks

Wouldn't it be great to have a workbook accessible with just a single button click? It's possible if you follow the steps ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is six minus 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.