Those huge toolbars !

[Michael]

I just switched to Mac and love it, particularly my PowerBook. I also have
a desktop PC, so I run MS Office on both. I have to say, the menu and
toolbar system in Office 2004 Mac is big and clumsy compared to the one for
Office 2003 PC. Not only are the toolbars twice as big/thick, they also
detach and move all over the place, getting all tangled up with the
underlying spreadsheets. Is there a way to change these toolbars so that
they emulate the smaller, neater, and more tidy ones in the PC version?

Thanks!

P.s. I love just about every other thing about OS X. Just hate this one
aspect.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Yikes, a question that made me launch virtual pc and classic. I so do not
have the memory to be doing that....

First off, your toolbars are not properly docked. Mine don't move around.
This is a little tricky. Basically, you have to grab the little bar at the
left end and move them around until they appear to sink into place between
the main Menu Bar and the top of the document/worksheet. When you get it
right, the worksheet will jump out of the way.

I checked in Word 2003 in Virtual PC, and yes the icons are a little
smaller. The height is about 1 cm in MacWord 2004 and .8 cm in WinWord, on
my screen (15-in pb g4 with resolution at 1280x854). Since you say twice as
big, I'm thinking something else is going on.

First, do the two computers have the same screen size and resolution? Lower
resolution numbers would mean the icons appear bigger. You might be able to
change the resolution to more closely fit what you like. If the screens are
substantially different vintage, you might just be stuck.

I assume that you only have this problem in Office apps, not any other
applications?

There used to be a preference for Large Icons, in Word 2001. But I can't
find it anywhere in Word X or Word 2004. It used to be on the Appearance
tab of the Tools | Customize dialog, but that no longer exists. So that's
probably irrelevant.

Hope that helps partially, anyhow.

 

[Michael]

Yikes, a question that made me launch virtual pc and classic. I so do not
have the memory to be doing that....

First off, your toolbars are not properly docked. Mine don't move around.
This is a little tricky. Basically, you have to grab the little bar at the
left end and move them around until they appear to sink into place between
the main Menu Bar and the top of the document/worksheet. When you get it
right, the worksheet will jump out of the way.

I checked in Word 2003 in Virtual PC, and yes the icons are a little
smaller. The height is about 1 cm in MacWord 2004 and .8 cm in WinWord, on
my screen (15-in pb g4 with resolution at 1280x854). Since you say twice as
big, I'm thinking something else is going on.

First, do the two computers have the same screen size and resolution? Lower
resolution numbers would mean the icons appear bigger. You might be able to
change the resolution to more closely fit what you like. If the screens are
substantially different vintage, you might just be stuck.

I assume that you only have this problem in Office apps, not any other
applications?

There used to be a preference for Large Icons, in Word 2001. But I can't
find it anywhere in Word X or Word 2004. It used to be on the Appearance
tab of the Tools | Customize dialog, but that no longer exists. So that's
probably irrelevant.

Dalya,

Thanks for your kind response. I would like to show you what the problem
is, however the ³Grab² program clears the toolbars before taking a screen
shot! This seems to defeat the purpose of that applet, but that¹s a
separate issue...

The problem I have is that somehow my excel window gets ³pushed up² under
the top toolbar, hiding the top of the window. Since you can only move a
window by grabbing its top (another niggling issue) and since you can only
resize a window by grabbing its lower right hand corner (another niggling
issue) then the only way I have found to move the excel window out from
under the toolbar, is to grab the tool bars, move them out of the way, then
grab the excel window by the top and move it down, but first I have to
resize it from the bottom so that when I move it down, the bottom is not
hidden below the bottom of the screen, which would then keep me from being
to able to resize it later. Phew! I¹m tired just from writing this! I¹m
sure there is a simpler way, I just find it all perplexing and not really
intuitive.

Regarding the size of toolbars, you can see that even the toolbars in MS
Office are twice the size of the menu bar. That is what I¹m comparing to.
In Office 2003 for Windows, there are two sizes for menu bars. Perhaps you
are comparing with the larger size.

Thanks again for your kind comments and assistance. I¹m still learning!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

The problem I have is that somehow my excel window gets ³pushed up² under

the top toolbar, hiding the top of the window.

<snip>

Yes, been there, done that. Move everything out of the way, then as I
suggested:
Find the sweet spot for the toolbars. Then float the window around till it
drops into the sweet spot as well. Once you have everything properly
docked, it will stay that way. Believe me, most people do not have this
problem, it is totally fixable.

Regarding the size of toolbars, you can see that even the toolbars in MS
Office are twice the size of the menu bar. That is what I¹m comparing to.
In Office 2003 for Windows, there are two sizes for menu bars. Perhaps you
are comparing with the larger size.

Ah...I was comparing the win toolbars with the Mac toolbars, as it sounded
like that was what you were finding annoying, not the difference between the
main menu and the toolbar. It's not quite twice on my machine, but yes, I
see what you mean. I don't think there's anything you can do about that.
(I'm fairly sure my WinOffice was on the standard settings, though).

Daiya

 

[JE McGimpsey]

The problem I have is that somehow my excel window gets ³pushed up² under
the top toolbar, hiding the top of the window. Since you can only move a
window by grabbing its top (another niggling issue) and since you can only
resize a window by grabbing its lower right hand corner (another niggling
issue) then the only way I have found to move the excel window out from
under the toolbar, is to grab the tool bars, move them out of the way, then
grab the excel window by the top and move it down,

First, Daiya was right that this happens when toolbars become undocked -
try docking them. You can then lock them in place:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/excel/locktoolbars.html

You can also always recover the window by using Window/Arrange All.

but first I have to resize it from the bottom so that when I move it
down, the bottom is not hidden below the bottom of the screen,
which would then keep me from being to able to resize it later.
Phew! I¹m tired just from writing this! I¹m sure there is a simpler
way, I just find it all perplexing and not really intuitive.

Once the window's title bar is visible, you can click the green resize
control to resize the window.

 

[Michael]

You're quite right, there's not a big difference when you compare actual
pixel size. This link shows the two toolbars side by side. It does appear
as if the Windows toolbar compresses the icons more so that you can see more
per line, but it's not a significant difference.

http://www.enthios.com/compare.htm

Thanks!

 

[Michael]

Thanks, I'll use Windows/Arrange all. I didn't understand the explanation
for locking bars that was on your site, but I've created my own toolbar so
that there is only one bar that shows everything I want; that way I only
need to move one bar when the windows get stuck underneath...

 

[Tim Murray]

I just switched to Mac and love it, particularly my PowerBook. I also have
a desktop PC, so I run MS Office on both. I have to say, the menu and
toolbar system in Office 2004 Mac is big and clumsy compared to the one for
Office 2003 PC. Not only are the toolbars twice as big/thick, they also
detach and move all over the place, getting all tangled up with the
underlying spreadsheets. Is there a way to change these toolbars so that
they emulate the smaller, neater, and more tidy ones in the PC version?

The best solution I found is this: Don't use most of them! My complete tool
bar has four buttons (show/hide text control, borders, highlight, and text
color) and three fields (style, font, and font size). I learned to get good
with the keyboard, and mapped a few handy menu items to keystrokes. Human
tests show that keyboard control is way faster than mouse control, too.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

You can always make a picture of any toolbars, resize the picture to any
size you like using a graphic editing program, then turn the picture
into an image map that activates the controls. It's work, but might be
fun as a learning exercise.

-Jim