Your question asked about toolbars, not menus, which is why you did not get
the answer you needed.

1. If this is Word 2000, on the Options tab of Tools | Customize, clear the
check box for "Menus show recently used items first."

2. For Word 2002 or 2003, check the box for "Always show full menus."

--
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.

"John Swire" wrote in message
...
Thanks to all for the helpful suggestions regarding customisation of the
toolbars in the thread. Unfortunately, what I am trying to do is escape
customisation!

I appreciate that dynamic toolbars and menus are a great feature for
people
who are overwhelmed by options and only use a limited subset of the
capacity
offered by the software. But my preference is to be able to use contextual
cues to find options; so I know that 'Insert Picture' is about three
fifths
of the way down the 'Insert' menu, between 'web component' and 'diagram'.
Before long it becomes instinct, and options being removed changes the
location of options so that you can no longer work instinctively.

As such establishing a subset of the functions to place on a foreshortened
menu doesn't really appeal to me as a solution; I have established that I
use
most of the buttons in the menu, and those which I use infrequently are
used
as navigation beacons for the ones I do. To cut the toolbar down to size
like
this I will in effect be doing manually what Word is doing automatically;
reducing my easily accessible options to the ones I use most frequently,
as
opposed to all of those available..

I'm also aware that making the toolbars occupy two lines of my display and
eat a bit of my document viewing space is a quick fix which will
apparently
solve my problem. But I want my formatting bar to the right of my standard
toolbar because after five years of it living there and behaving in a
certain
way, for me that's where it 'belongs'. You can call me set in my ways, or
ask
me to move with the times, but I think that this small, but arbitrary and
inconsistent change to the behaviour of an established function is not an
improvement

Thanks again for all the help offered and sorry to counter your kind
suggestions with dull and wordy moans