Once I click customize, I can no longer figure out what some of the existing
buttons (especially ones that are new for Office 2003) are. This makes it
more difficult to place new buttons, or remove default buttons which I won't
end up using.

I prefer to have only a dozen or so buttons, and use menus for less familiar
actions, but don't know what features I'm getting rid of because I can't
identify the buttons. Currently I find myself leaving customize to identify
buttons, and then going back into it to remove buttons, then leaving it again
and coming back in, etc. Tooltips could continue to work in Customize mode,
or some other method could help you identify what an existing toolbar button
is.

If you right-click on any button while in the Customize dialog, you will see
the Name property of the button.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"glindauer" wrote in message
...
Once I click customize, I can no longer figure out what some of the
existing
buttons (especially ones that are new for Office 2003) are. This makes it
more difficult to place new buttons, or remove default buttons which I
won't
end up using.

I prefer to have only a dozen or so buttons, and use menus for less
familiar
actions, but don't know what features I'm getting rid of because I can't
identify the buttons. Currently I find myself leaving customize to
identify
buttons, and then going back into it to remove buttons, then leaving it
again
and coming back in, etc. Tooltips could continue to work in Customize
mode,
or some other method could help you identify what an existing toolbar
button
is.

I hope you don't mind if I add some other suggestions here?

-- It'd be nice if the customize dialog would change to display the info on
the control you clicked on. [You can copy/paste controls by holding down
Ctrl, then drag-and-drop. Even if you're not in customize mode,
Alt+Ctrl+drag/drop works. But it would still be nice if you could locate a
control for customization by simply clicking on it.]

-- In older versions, the customization dialog also showed a short
description if a command was selected. This was removed in Word2003. I'd
suggest to bring it back (and best without need to click on a "Description"
button to see it... The Mac version Word2004 does this perfectly).
[You can still see the description text for many simple commands in the
"ToolsCustomizeKeyboardShortcut" dialog which you get by using the shortcut
Alt + Ctrl + Num+ (where Num+ = "+" on the numeric keypad) and then click on
the button/menu item, or use the keyboard shortcut. For complex controls
(combo boxes ...) or controls added from an add-in, this unfortunately won't
work.]

-- An "ideal" solution might be a consolidated right-click (context)
properties menu for each control (if technically feasible: without need to
enter a customize mode) that shows which customization context (Normal.dot,
template, add-in) is responsible for the control, shows the assigned
command/macro/style, the description text, and also directly allows to see
and edit the caption, button face, tooltip text (that appears if you hover
over the control), and keyboard shortcut. [Some of these things need a macro
right now, or for the description text the work-around mentioned above. The
rest is distributed over different dialogs and the context menu in "customize
mode".]

Regards,
Klaus



"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

If you right-click on any button while in the Customize dialog, you will see
the Name property of the button.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"glindauer" wrote in message
...
Once I click customize, I can no longer figure out what some of the
existing
buttons (especially ones that are new for Office 2003) are. This makes it
more difficult to place new buttons, or remove default buttons which I
won't
end up using.

I prefer to have only a dozen or so buttons, and use menus for less
familiar
actions, but don't know what features I'm getting rid of because I can't
identify the buttons. Currently I find myself leaving customize to
identify
buttons, and then going back into it to remove buttons, then leaving it
again
and coming back in, etc. Tooltips could continue to work in Customize
mode,
or some other method could help you identify what an existing toolbar
button
is.