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     Add a 'Select All' button to Microsoft Word's toolbar (Word 97 to 2003)     
                
 
One of the good things about the programs in the Microsoft Office suites, prior to Office 2007, is that you can customise the toolbars to exactly how you want them to be.  You can move buttons to better positions, remove buttons you do not need, add new buttons for functions you do need, create or modify button designs with the built-in Button Editor, or import externally-designed buttons with the Paste Button Image function.
The majority of extra buttons which can be dragged onto the toolbars are provided with ready-made icons.  But a few aren't.  They merely have full-text labels which, in some cases, can take up a disproportionate amount of space on a toolbar and, of course, look quite out of place on a toolbar which is otherwise all icons.  An example of this is Word's button for "Select All".  This function is used by everybody at some time or other.  It is, therefore, an ideal button to add to the Standard toolbar of Word.
The "Select All" button in Word, by default, has a full-text label instead of an icon, as you can see in Fig 1.  This is where the Button Editor would normally come into play.  It allows you to draw an icon from scratch, if you are so inclined.  However, we have already done this, so a much easier solution is to simply download and apply ours.  It is in a zip file a little further down the page.
In fact, there are two icons in the zip file.  One is a standard flat icon suitable for Word from version 97 through to 2002 (see Fig 2).  The other is a part-shaded variation, intended for the more elegant toolbars of Word 2003 (see Fig 3).
To add either of these icons to your own copy of Word, click the zip-link below.  The download is just a plain zip file containing three items, namely the two small button images and a text file.  The zip file is only 3KB in size, making it the smallest and fastest download of its type anywhere on the internet.
After downloading the zip file to your desktop and scanning it for viruses (just routine), extract the contents to the desktop.  Open the text file and follow the simple instructions.  In just a few minutes, your own copy of Word will have this useful new addition, just as you can see in Figs 2 or 3.
   select.zip©       
 
 
 
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Fig. 1  The screengrab below shows the standard, optional, "Select All" button that users can add to Microsoft Word's toolbar:-
 
 
Fig. 2 (below)  This screengrab shows our purpose-made "Select All" icon added to the Standard toolbar in Word 97:-
 
 
Fig. 3 (below)  This screengrab shows our "Select All" icon blending in really nicely with the stunning blue toolbars of Word 2003.
 
 
Fig. 4 (popup)  Click here to see a full-width screenshot.
 
 
 
 
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First posted 3.10.04 (dmy)    Last amended 1.8.08    Copyright (C) 2004-2008 PM Designs   All Rights Reserved