Mac Forum / Applications / Word / August 2006

Ha! and Ha again!! I often wondered what would happen if the command to
reset the menus and toolbars disappeared, along with the all the other
menu items that mysteriously go walkabout.

When I stopped laughing, I tried an experiment and it works!
Oh joy, Oh joy Oh frabjous day!

Go to customize keyboard
select tools from the left hand box
navigate to ToolsCustomize in the right hand box.
assign a keyboard shortcut to it
exit the customize panel
type the keyboard shortcut

Lo and behold, the panel for customising the menus/toolbars appears
complete with the reset button.

I'm keeping that shortcut for when the whole thing goes walkies.

heh! I need a record of this. I'm sure I'll forget.
Dear Google Groups. The shortcut I assigned was ctrl-opt-b

Sad innit? Why can't they write a version of Word that doesn't silently
lose menu items?

The same company that writes an OS that irritatingly asks three times
if you *really* want to close a connection will whip your operating
environment out from underneath you without a by-your leave.

Consistency. Is it too much to ask?

UhOh! Wait! Is that your problem?
Is tools » customize » customize  toolbars/menus still in the menu but
just does nothing?
Two things should happen. You *should* get a toolbar that mimics the
main menu and you *should* get a dialog panel called, you guessed it,
customize toolbars/menus. If neither of those appear, you might somehow
have convinced them to display outside the boundaries of your screen.
You might try climbing out of Word, into system  preferences » displays
and changing the screen(s) sizes to something silly, like 800*600.
Sometimes that will jiggle strayed panels back into view. Wiggle them a
bit, then set your screen resolution back to normal.

There is also a macro that does something similar floating about. Ask
again if you need it modifying to wrassle your customize panels.