Resetting Toolbars to Their Default

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 4, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Excel is very flexible. You can customize your working environment to your heart's content. You can change menus, the toolbar, viewing and printing options, and many more variables. There may come a day, however, when you want to reset the Excel toolbars structure their default condition. When you do this, all the toolbar buttons and their order will be set to the same condition they were when you first installed Excel.

If you want to reset the Excel toolbars, perform 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.

  4. In the list of available toolbars, select the one you want to reset.
  5. Click on the Reset button. You are asked to confirm resetting of the toolbar.
  6. Click on OK to reset the toolbar.
  7. Repeat steps 3 through 5 for each toolbar you want to reset.
  8. Click on Close to dismiss the Customize dialog box.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2727) 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. ...

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