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| If you are looking for a replacement for the original Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar (OSB)
you should go to our other page about the OSB. The
page you are now on offers an alternative to that by placing the standard Office shortcuts on
a pull-up menu instead of on the traditional sidebar. If you like the sound of this (see
what we mean in Fig 2 or, for older machines, in Fig 3) then read on. |
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| To get our preloaded menu all you have to do is click the appropriate zip file just below
and save it to your desktop. The download is not a program you will have to install, so
there is no risk to your system. It merely takes advantage of a little-known feature within
Windows (in all versions since Windows 98) which will allow any yellow folder to be turned into
an inconspicuous button on the Taskbar (like the 'pm' button in Fig 1) which, when clicked,
will show the contents of the folder in the form of a popup menu. The effect is the same
as when you click the Start button and the Start menu pops up. But, in this case, our
menu will take you straight to all the key Office applications and applets. |
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| At first, you will find the new button on the Taskbar is labelled 'pm' (which stands for
personal menu). However, the label can be changed to anything
you like, as long as it's nice and short. For instance, you could call it "om"
for office menu. Or you could personalise it with your own initials. |
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| Any time the double chevron (>>) on the button is clicked, the pull-up menu will immediately
appear. Click the button in Fig 1 now for a simulated effect. After clicking
any shortcut on the menu (on the real menu, not the one in Fig 1), the menu will disappear again.
It's the same effect as when you click a shortcut on the Start menu. |
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| You will probably have noticed, from Fig 2, that the various shortcuts are separated into
numbered groups. The groups 1, 2 and 3 in Fig 2 correspond with groupings which were
employed on the original OSB that used to come with Microsoft Office prior to Office versions
2003 and 2007. The numbering adds some novel eye-candy to the menu but is primarily there
to force Windows to automatically keep related shortcuts together in their respective groups.
There is a miscellaneous group at the bottom which is where new shortcuts, if you add any, will
initially go. And that is where they will stay unless you later add a prefix number to
the shortcut's label to move it into one of the other groups. If you didn't want the numbers
at all, you will find you can easily erase them. Windows would then sort all the shortcuts
into one single alphabetical list. However, we don't think that arrangement is as efficient
as a group-sorted list. |
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For adding new shortcuts, there is a special item at the top of the menu called "Add
New Shortcuts". This is needed because, for some strange reason, Windows does not
allow shortcuts to be dragged on to this particular type of menu unlike, say, the Start menu,
the Quick Launch toolbar, or a Windows sidebar - all of which do support drag and drop.
We overcame this Windows' limitation by inventing the item "Add New Shortcuts" ©. |
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| There are two zip files to choose from. Firstly, the menu in the zip file on the left
works with all versions of Windows from Windows 98 to XP and with all versions of Office from
Office 97 to Office 2003. To make that possible, the menu is pre-loaded with up to four
versions of each shortcut to ensure there should be at least one of each which will work on
your particular system. The first time you open the menu, you will immediately spot the
superfluous ones that don't work. They will be the ones without a program's proper icon
next to them. It takes just a minute or so to delete all the surplus ones and you will
then be left looking at something as striking as the menu in Fig 2 or Fig 3.
The second zip file, on the right of the two, is specifically for users of Office 2007 and,
hence, does not have multiple versions of any shortcuts in it. It's ready to roll immediately
you apply it. |
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| You may have noticed, from Fig 2, that the menu includes several dividing lines to
give the groupings a more professional look. Windows does not include anything like that
for this style of menu so, for the purpose of our Office menu, these Separator Bars©
were something else we had to specially invent. The separators are numbered so that Windows
will automatically lock the three lines in the relevant positions. |
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| When you have downloaded the appropriate zip file, right-click on it and extract the contents
to your desktop. After extracting the contents you will find, on your desktop,
depending on which zip file you chose, either (i) a yellow folder called Personal Menu and a
text file called method.txt or (ii) an initial holding folder called menu07 which, when opened,
will contain a main folder Personal Menu and a text file called method07.txt. Open the
text file and follow the simple set of instructions therein. After about five minutes
of enjoyable interaction on your part, your new button and menu will be in place and will be
enhancing not just your desktop features but also your daily efficiency. |
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Tips |
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1. Menu or a sidebar?
If you would rather have a sidebar
than a menu, from scratch, go to our OSB page. But, if
you implement our pull-up menu, then decide you would rather have had the shortcuts on a sidebar,
you will find it is very easy to change the menu into a sidebar. The extra instructions
for doing so are included in the zip file. A sidebar could, incidentally, be docked across
the top of your desktop, rather than down the side, after the style of Macs and
some Linux distros. |
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2. Menu and a sidebar?
There is nothing to stop anybody having both a pull-up menu and a sidebar, with different
shortcuts on each, if they so wish. As, say, in Fig 3 where you can just catch a glimpse
of a sidebar poking up behind the pull-up menu. The two features merely need to be in separate
folders in the C: directory, so they can be called up as separate Windows' toolbars - with one
being left on the Taskbar as a button and the other dragged off as a sidebar. Having both
might be of interest to people who like to keep a completely clear desktop in order to have widgets all
over it or a favourite photograph as the background wallpaper. |
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| Fig 1 The screengrab below shows how small and unobtrusive the 'personal
menu' button is in normal use. But, click the double chevrons on the button and it expands into a
nice pull-up menu like the one in Fig 2. |
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| Fig 2 The screenshot above shows our Office Shortcuts Menu in all its glory.
The shortcuts shown come preloaded when you download the zip file. If any was not to work on your system (i.e. because you
did not have the relevant program installed) - you would delete it and replace it with another you would like to have on there. |
| Fig 3 Below is the same Personal Menu popup as above but, this time, on a Windows
98 system. Note the additional enhancement of a Windows' sidebar, poking up behind (sidebars
are the subject of another of our pages). Also worth mentioning is how this Win 98 desktop was 'modernised'
by the use of transparent labels for the desktop icons (email us if you want to know how to
achieve that marvellous effect on a pre-XP machine) and by having the icons floating over a
'Clouds' wallpaper. Clearly a highly efficient desktop - and splendiferous looking, even
in classic Windows' grey... |
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