Customise Microsoft Office
Quick access
At the top of the “ribbon”, there’s the Quick Access Toolbar. If you want faster access to a specific function that you often use, simply add it to that bar. You can do this by right-clicking on the toolbar (top left) and choosing Customise Quick Access Toolbar .
By default, only a few functions will be active, including Save , Undo and Redo . However, under Choose Commands From ..., you can choose from dozens of other “commands”, such as Print Preview and Print , Email , Cut , Copy , Font, etc. Click on Add to add this button to the list; the arrow buttons at the right of the list let you change the order of the buttons on the toolbar.
Tip. If you want to save your selection of quick access buttons and their order to reuse them on another computer, create a “customisation file”. In the settings window of the toolbar, go to the Customise Ribbon section. Choose Import/Export; Export All Customisations and save the file. On the other computer, go to the same window but choose Import/Export; Import Customisation File.
Tip. Use the Reset ; Reset All Customisations function to reset your toolbar to the default values.
Use the “dark theme”
In Office, you can now use a “dark theme”. This should be more pleasant to the eyes if you work in a dark environment or in the evening. Click on File ; Options ; General and choose Black under Office Theme .
Tip. Windows itself can be set to a dark mode, via the Settings window (Windows button + I) and then via Personal Settings ; Colours ; Dark .
Start without a template
When you launch Office, you will see a window where you can choose an existing template or create a new one but in most cases you just want to start a new blank document or open an existing file. To change this, go to File ; Options ; Startup Options and uncheck the Show the Start Screenwhen this Application Starts checkbox. Note. You will have to change this setting for each Office program separately.
Tip. If you do want to use the templates but you find that there are too many of them on the Start screen, right-click on the templates you wish to remove and choose the appropriate option.
Recent documents
By default, you will see a list of recently opened documents in Office ( File ; Recent ). This is handy, but if you find this list a bit too long, go to File ; Options ; Advanced ; Display and change the number of “recent files” under Show this Number of Recent Unpinned Folders/Documents. Note. This is a setting that has to be configured separately for each Office program individually.
Tip. You can manually remove recent files from the list by right-clicking on them and selecting Remove from List .
Configure alerts in Outlook
Do you find it annoying that Outlook always displays mail “alerts” on the Windows desktop or taskbar? In Outlook, go to File ; Options and select Mail . Go to Message Arrival and clear the Display a Desktop Alert checkbox.
Tip. You can turn off Play a Sound here, and deactivate Show an Envelope Icon in the Taskbar.
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