MS Word comes with a wealth of toolbars, all accessible from the View > Toolbars menu.

But what if you need your very own special toolbar with only the kind of menu items and functional tools that you need and use frequently?

By designing your own toolbar you can increase your productivity substantially.

Follow these steps:

1. Select Tools > Customize to display the Customize dialog box.

2. In the Toolbars tab, click the New button to display the New Toolbar dialog box.

3. Enter any name you want for your custom toolbar. You can make this toolbar available either only a part of the existing document or the Normal.dot template. If you select the Normal template, this toolbar will be available every time you create a new Word document. Otherwise, it will show up only if you save your current document and reopen it.

4. Click OK and Word will display a small gray square as the main frame of your new toolbar. Now it's time to add the all functions and buttons you like onto your custom toolbar.

5. In the Customize dialog box, click and select the Commands tab.

6. Select a Category from the left list. Its associated Commands will be displayed on the right list.

7. Click on the Command you like and drag it on to your "toolbar square." When your cursor transforms into a crossbar (like a capital letter I), release your mouse and the new command button will be dropped into your toolbar.

8. Repeat the above step with all the other functions and command buttons you like and soon you'll have for yourself a special toolbar more useful than perhaps any other standard Word toolbar because it contains only those functions that you use frequently and nothing else. Enjoy.