Use Microsoft Word every day? Millions do, simply taking the way its developers designed the program's menus as the way it has to be. With a few customizations, you can make changes that better suit the way you use the program.

A toolbar is an area in Word (and other Microsoft Office programs) that contains buttons or menus or a combination of both. Generally the toolbars are located just below your menu options (File, Edit, View, Insert, etc.). The buttons and menus displayed allow you to perform certain actions called commands.

You are probably most familiar with the Standard and Formatting toolbars. The Standard toolbar lists the icons to save a document, print a document, spell check and more. The Formatting toolbar is the area for changing the font, font size, and left or right justification, to name a few.

You may not know that you can change these toolbars to display only the buttons of the commands you use most often. This helps clear out clutter and makes the precise action easier to find.

For example, more than two-dozen buttons can be assigned to the Standard toolbar. Many of those commands, such as Document Map (a separate pane that displays a list of headings in the document), you'll probably never use.

To remove Document Map from the Standard toolbar, click Tools, then Customize. Click the Toolbars tab and make sure Standard is highlighted. Left-click the icon for Document Map and drag the button off the toolbar. In the Customize dialog box, click Close.

Or, click the Toolbar Options (this is the little arrow on the far-right side of the Standard toolbar) and place your mouse over Add or Remove Buttons. Clear the checkmarks next to any type of command you don't use regularly. Alternatively, you can add buttons to the toolbar by placing a checkmark next to the command.

You can also add commands to a toolbar that aren't listed in Toolbar Options. For example, I use the Word Count command often when writing my columns. Instead of clicking Tools, then Word Count, I can add that command to a toolbar.

To do this, click Tools, Customize. Click the Commands Tab. Scroll to Tools in the Categories pane. In the Commands pane, scroll down until you find Word Count. Left-click on Word Count and drag it up to a toolbar (you can drag it to any toolbar).

Once the commands that you want in the toolbars are displayed, make it easier on yourself by displaying the name of the command along with the icon. For example, the icon used for the command to "paste" is a picture of a clipboard with a tiny document over it. You can see that icon every day for years and still have a hard time associating it with the command "paste."

To change the icon, click Tools, Customize. Place your cursor over the icon and right-click on the button. Here you can select a different button image, select Text Only or Image and Text.

There are more than the Standard and Formatting toolbars. Click View, Toolbars to access them. You'll probably never need many of the toolbars, but some are worth exploring. If you track changes of documents, the Review toolbar will come in handy. You'll also find toolbars for Drawing, Forms and more.

Contact Kim Komando at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.