Turning Off Dynamic Menus

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated May 26, 2017)

Excel, starting with Excel 2000, employs a feature I refer to as "dynamic menus." This means that Excel keeps track of which menu options you use the most, and these are the options it presents you. If you want to see all the menu options, you need to hover the mouse pointer over a menu for a few seconds, or click on the down-pointing arrows at the bottom of any menu.

Dynamic menus can make it a bit easier to get to the choices you make most often, but there is a drawback: It is more difficult to see all the menu-based capabilities of Excel. If you want to turn off this feature (thereby making Excel's menus behave as they did in previous program versions), follow these steps:

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

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

  3. Clear the check box to the left of the Menus Show Recently Used Commands First option. (In Excel 2003, select the Always Show Full Menus check box.)
  4. Click on OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3311) applies to Microsoft Excel 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

Formatting All Headings At Once

If you need to apply a common formatting change to all the headings in your document, a quick way to do it is to use the ...

Discover More

Unwanted Graph Paper Effect

When you open a document or start to use Word, do you see a background that looks like graph paper? It could be because ...

Discover More

Disabling Track Changes Completely

Have you ever had problems with a document because you accidentally pressed a keyboard shortcut? The good news is that ...

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)

Understanding Lists

What is a list of data, and how do you create one? Here are some guidelines you may find helpful.

Discover More

Setting the Calculation Default

Excel can recalculate your worksheets either automatically or manually. The default is to calculate them automatically, ...

Discover More

Turning Off Error Checking

A little green triangle in the corner of a cell means that Excel thinks there is an error with the cell contents. If ...

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}] 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 three less than 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 AUTHORS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.