Illegal Operation! Fatal Exception!
Error, Error Will Robinson!
Accent on Computers to the rescue! 203-625-7575.
February 2, 2007
Learning the Right Magic
Dear Larry,
Suddenly, my toolbars seem to be disappearing. My Word
toolbar with the fonts is gone and so is the toolbar that resides at the bottom
of my screen. What’s going on and how do I get them back?
L. P.
Dear L. P.,
All it takes is an inadvertent click or drag of the mouse and,
voilà! Suddenly, you’re a magician. Fortunately, you can be just as skillful at
making things reappear as long as you know the right sleight of hand, or in this
case, sleight of finger. Indeed, the solution to this conundrum dates back to my
very first Log On with Larry column, almost nine years ago. Clearly, a review is
in order.
What do you do when you don’t know what to do? The answer is
right-click. More specifically, right-click on an object to get help on
manipulating or altering that object. In this case, help comes in the form of a
pop-up menu of actions you can take on the item you right-clicked!
Let’s start with the missing toolbar in Microsoft Word. The
menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc.) sits immediately below the title bar. Below
that, you usually find the Standard toolbar, containing toolbar buttons for
creating, opening, saving, and printing documents, and so forth. You happen to
be missing the Formatting toolbar, which contains the font and font size along
with the bold, italics, and underline buttons.
By now the way to restore your toolbar should be apparent.
Simply right-click anywhere on the toolbar or menu bar for that matter and up
will come a pop-up menu of toolbar choices. Those that are checked are currently
displayed while those unchecked are hidden, waiting for just the right moment to
make themselves known. Since your Formatting toolbar is missing, no doubt
there’s no checkmark to the left of the word “Formatting” in the pop-up menu.
Simply click on this menu choice, and your toolbar will be back just the way you
left it.
Now if you’ve been paying attention, you should be able to
write the rest of this column. You want to know how to make the (“Quick Launch”)
toolbar on your taskbar (at the bottom of your screen) come back. Now you know!
Right-click on a blank portion of the taskbar (don’t right-click on a button or
some other item that’s residing on the taskbar—that’s another object altogether,
which will generate its own pop-up menu). You should see choices like Open
Folder, Toolbars, and Cascade Windows. Since you want one of your toolbars back,
click the Toolbars option, then click Quick Launch to get your toolbar back.
How do you empty the Recycle Bin? Right-click it! How do you
change the time in the bottom right corner of your screen? Right-click it! How
do you delete or rename an icon? Right-click it! How do you make a change to
your Windows desktop? Right-click it!
And how do you pull a rabbit out of a hat? Well, that’s the
subject of another column…
This is Larry
Schneider, logging off.
