Work more efficiently with customized toolbars

It’s very helpful to create a customized toolbar in StarOffice 8 with the tools you use most frequently. You’ll no longer need to search through all the menus for tools or struggle to remember which tool does what.

Here’s how to create your own StarOffice toolbar:

• On the main menu, select View > Toolbars > Presentation. A new, floating toolbar window will appear on your desktop. It contains no tools at the moment.
• On the top portion of the floating toolbar, click on the down arrow (see illustration below) and select Customize Toolbar
• Select Add to view the Add Commands window
• In Add Commands, choose a tool Category, then scroll through the list of Commands on the right to see the available tools for that category
• To add a tool to the floating toolbar, select a tool (Command) and click the Add button. You can continue to add more tools from different categories — as many as you wish. When you’re finished adding tools, click the Close button.
• Click OK to exit the Customize Toolbar window
• You can add, delete or rearrange tools at any time with the Customize Toolbar window

The illustrations below show the Add Commands window and a sample customized toolbar. The red circle calls out the down arrow you can click to bring up the Customize window.

Where to place the toolbar?

The Presentation toolbar can float on the desktop or dock to the top, bottom or sides of the workspace – it’s up to you. To dock the toolbar, click on the top portion of the toolbar and drag it until you see a “ghost” outline showing where the toolbar can be placed. Release the mouse button to dock the toolbar into position. The toolbar can be docked at another location later, or returned to float mode.

Other useful toolbars

• Options toolbar. The built-in Options toolbar is handy as it contains a number of unique formatting tools already set up for use. To activate the Options toolbar, select View > Toolbars > Options. The toolbar will appear at the bottom of the StarOffice workspace. At the far right side of the Options toolbar is another down arrow — click on this arrow and select Customize Toolbar to add, delete, or rearrange tools on the Options toolbar. You can add tools in this way to any of the other StarOffice built-in toolbars.
• Color bar. Select View > Toolbars > Color Bar to place the full color palette on the StarOffice workspace.