Microsoft Office Toolbar Disappeared Mac
Microsoft has partnered with leading companies to build programs that help you get things done right from your inbox. These programs are called Office Add-ins in Outlook 2016 and Outlook 2019, and Apps for Office in Outlook 2013, and help you speed up the way you access information on the web. For example, the Bing Maps add-in becomes available in an email that contains an address, and you.
If you’re one of the billion-plus people who employ Microsoft’s Office software each month, you may start noticing some changes.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced new updates for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. They'll roll out gradually over the next few months.
The changes, from a collapsed “ribbon” to newly drawn icons, may help modernize a venerable but aging franchise.
In recent years Office has mostly been transformed from a set of desktop applications to a cloud-connected app and services. And that means Microsoft no longer piles on a bunch of new features at once into software that you bought and were meant to live with every two to three years, until the next new version came along.
“We were like bakers in a kitchen putting all the wonderful touches on our creations and then we did the big reveal,” says Microsoft corporate vice president Jared Spataro.
So call these next changes coming to Office more of a modest reveal. The refresh is based on the so-called “Fluent Design” system that Microsoft announced last year for Windows 10:
Microsoft Office Has Disappeared
Simplified ribbon
The three-line ribbon toolbar at the top of your screen is being whittled down to a space-saving single line. The idea is that you can better focus on your own content in a Word document, for example. If you’re not keen on this new view, though, Microsoft still gives you the option to expand the ribbon back into its present form.
Microsoft Office Toolbar Disappeared Mac 10
You can also now customize the ribbon. According to Microsoft, 95% of us use the same 10-ish commands in the ribbon. But the remaining 5% of commands differ from user to user. You will now be able to pin the commands most meaningful to you to the ribbon.
The online version of Word is the first app to get this simplified ribbon. It comes to Outlook for Windows next month. But those of you who toil in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Windows have to wait until Microsoft solicits more feedback from a broader set of users.
Fresh icons
Users of the web version of Word at Office.com will also be the first to experience new colors and higher contrast icons that may be easier to make out for people with poor vision.
A Microsoft designer with low vision found that when the contrast is lower, and icons are of the same color, they may blur.
These newly designed icons will appear for select 'Insiders' in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows later this month. In July, they will show up in Outlook for Windows, and in August start rolling out to Outlook on the Mac.
Improved search
The moment you place your cursor in a search box, and before you type anything, you’ll see recommendations generated by artificial intelligence and based on past searches or what you’re working on.
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter
When you make your own toolbar in Office 2011 for Mac, some of the commands you’ve chosen might not have nice icons, or any icon for that matter. You can control whether to display a command’s icon, text description, or both from the Customize Toolbars and Menus dialog. This is a super-powerful dialog in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that lets you exert total control over all the toolbars and menus.
To see the command controls, right-click a command button and choose Properties. The Command Properties dialog appears.
Changing a command button icon
While the Command Properties dialog for any toolbar button is displayed, take these steps to change the button icon for this command:
Click the Customize Icon downward-pointing arrow (next to the button icon in the upper-left corner of the dialog).
Choose from any of the available icons in this menu.
Alternatively, if you copied a small picture from any application to the Mac OS X Clipboard, you can use the Paste Button Image option to replace the command button icon with the picture on the Clipboard.
Assigning a keyboard shortcut to a command button
As if that weren’t enough customization, you can set or change the keyboard shortcut for any command. Remember that it’s possible to do this customization in Word and Excel only, not PowerPoint. To proceed with assigning keyboard shortcuts, follow these steps:
Make sure you followed steps in the preceding section to access the Command Properties dialog.
Click the Keyboard button.
Click OK when done to get back to the Command Properties dialog.
Microsoft Office Toolbar Icons
Fine-tuning toolbar and button properties
Using the Command Properties dialog, you can do more to customize buttons:
Name: View or change the name of a toolbar or menu command. Knowing a command’s name can be helpful when you’re programming in VBA or AppleScript.
View: Choose whether to display an icon’s name, icon, or both in custom toolbars. This doesn’t affect the Standard toolbar or menus.
Begin a group: When selected, this option adds a dividing line to the left of a button or above a menu item to help visually distinguish groups of commands.
Reset: Restores the default toolbar icon for the command.
Using Customize Toolbars and Menus dialog, you can do the following:
Show: Select to show, or deselect to hide any toolbar.
Rename: Change the name of a custom toolbar or menu.
Delete: Permanently delete a custom toolbar or menu.
Reset: Restore a built-in toolbar or menu’s default commands.
Show Icon and Text: When selected, this option shows a command’s name under the command’s icon on the Standard toolbar.
Show ScreenTips for toolbar commands: When selected, this option displays the command name in a ScreenTip when the mouse cursor is positioned over a toolbar command.
Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips: When selected, this option displays the keyboard shortcut for a command in the ScreenTip.
Show typefaces in font menus: When checked, shows small preview examples of fonts in font selection pop-up menus.