The first two lessons in this tutorial on Microsoft Project took us through how to start a project using the Microsoft Project software. Then we learned some navigational aspects and about the Screen layout, menu bars and toolbars in the previous lesson. As you must have realized, some of these functionalities are similar to what you have seen in other Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
Now, in this lesson of the tutorial, let us continue looking more at the contents of the toolbars in Microsoft Project.
The small little graphics you see on each of these toolbars are referred to as icons, and as you have intuitively guessed, each icon has a function associated with it. Move your mouse over the icons in the toolbars and you can see a screen-tip indicating what that icon stands for.
On the Standard toolbar, for instance, you have icons for New File, File search, Print preview, Spelling, Undo, and so forth. You are wondering where Open, Save, Print, Cut, Copy, and Paste have gone, right? We will come to them soon.
On the Formatting toolbar you have icons for Indent, Outdent, Show and Hide subtasks, etc.
You must also have noticed that most of these toolbar icons represent functionalities that you could otherwise access through the Menu options. Thus, in a way, these toolbars provide shortcuts for some functionalities. But these toolbars are much more friendly than being mere shortcuts, and in quite a few instances offer functionalities which are not easily navigable through the menu options. Moreover, these toolbars are extensively customizable. The best way to become friendly with these tools is to use them with your sample project and familiarize yourself with their power.
How do you customize the toolbars?
Let us start with the Standard toolbar. On the extreme right of the Standard toolbar (just before the Formatting bar starts), do you see small double arrows and a small down arrow? Click on this, and you can understand what we mean by customizing the toolbar. Similarly, you have the option for adding or removing buttons in most of the toolbars.
