Access, Word, PowerPoint

The shortcut menu that's displayed when you right-click your mouse provides quick access to actions that are relevant to the object you click on. But, it's often likely that the shortcut menu is lacking a selection that you feel would make working easier.

Fortunately, it's easy to customize shortcut menus to your liking. To do so, right-click on any visible toolbar and choose Customize. Then, click on the Toolbars tab and select the Shortcut Menus check box.

A toolbar that contains menus for major work environments within Access, such as Database, Query and Module. Text, Table, Draw for Word. Text, Table, Draw, Slide Show in PowerPoint.

(How to customize menus and menu bars in Excel )

Now, click on the Commands tab and scroll through the Categories and Commands list boxes to locate the command you want to add. Then, click and drag the command up to the appropriate menu and submenu on the Shortcut Menus toolbar.

For example, let's say that you want to customize the shortcut menu that appears when you right-click on a Table Cell to include a choice for Inserting the Date. To do so,

1. Select Insert in the Categories list box.
   
2. Then, drag Date from the Commands list box to the Table menu on the Shortcut Toolbar, without releasing the mouse button.
   
3. When your mouse pointer is over the menu it will automatically expand to reveal its submenus.
   
4. Drag the mouse pointer over Table Cell and you'll see the other choices that are displayed when you right-click on a control.
   
5. Simply drag the Date command to the position on the menu that you want and release the mouse button.
   
6. When you've finished customizing the shortcut menu, click Close to dismiss the Customize dialog box.