Customizing a Toolbar

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 2, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

You can completely change Excel to reflect how you want to do your work. One of the elements of the program you can change is the toolbars. You can add, remove, or edit buttons that appear on any toolbar. To customize a toolbar, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Customize from the Tools menu. Excel 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. In the list of toolbars, make sure the toolbars you want to edit are selected.
  4. Click on the Commands tab. (See Figure 2.)

    5. Figure 2. The Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

  5. In the list of Categories, select the major category which contains the command you want to add to the toolbar.
  6. In the list of Commands, select the command you want to add to the toolbar.
  7. Use the mouse to drag the command from the Commands list to its new location on the toolbar. When you release the mouse button, the icon or wording for the command appears.
  8. Repeat steps 5 through 7 to add new toolbar commands.
  9. Click on Close to dismiss the Customize dialog box.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2724) 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

Entering or Importing Times without Colons

Enter a time into a cell and you normally include a colon between the hours and minutes. If you want to skip that pesky ...

Discover More

Finding the Analysis ToolPak Add-In

The Analysis ToolPak is used to add some very handy worksheet functions to Excel. If you don't have it installed, and you ...

Discover More

Out of Memory Errors when Accessing the VBA Editor

It can be frustrating when you get error messages doing something that you previously did with no errors. If you get an ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Quickly Removing a Toolbar Button

Want to get rid of a toolbar button? There's no need to drag open the menus and dialog boxes; just use the shortcut ...

Discover More

Editing a Toolbar Button Image

Don't like the toolbar button images in your version of Excel? Don't fret; you can pull up the button editor and make ...

Discover More

Creating a New Toolbar

Excel's interface can be easily modified to reflect the way you want to do your work. This tip explains how you can ...

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 one more than 2?

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.