Customizing Word's Toolbars

Reader Barbara Van Gorder misses some of the cosmetic features found in earlier versions of Microsoft Word. She writes:

In older versions of Word there were pictures on the toolbar for cut and paste. They don't appear in the latest version of Word. Do you know how to make them appear?

The key to populating Word's toolbars is the Customize Toolbars and Menus command found under Word's View menu. Invoke this command and the Customize Toolbars and Menus window appears. Click the Command tab and choose Edit from the Categories pane. In the Commands pane to the right, you'll see all the commands classified as Edit commands. The third, fourth, and fifth entries are Cut, Copy, and Paste. To add those commands to a toolbar, just drag them, one at a time, to a position on the toolbar that pleases you.

If later the position displeases you, you must invoke this command again (you'll find it easier to do by Control-clicking on the toolbar and choosing Customize Toolbars and Menus from the menu that appears). Once the Customize Toolbars and Menus window appears you can drag toolbar icons anywhere you'd like them to appear. To remove one, just drag it off the toolbar.

Now that you have the basics of adding commands to toolbars, why not make a custom toolbar of your own and populate it with those commands nearest and dearest to you? To do so, just invoke that Customize Toolbars and Menus command again, click the Toolbars and Menus tab in the resulting window, and click the New button to create a new toolbar. Assign an appropriate name (My Toolbar, for example), click the Commands tab, and start dragging commands to the toolbar.