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Use Word 2000/3 Toolbars in Word 2007
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One of the
main user interface features of Word, up to version 2003, has been the
ability to create toolbars and have the commands they contain available
to documents. The big shock on changing to Word 2007 is that such
toolbars are no longer available, however it is possible to add the Word
2000/3 toolbar buttons to Word 2007's ribbon by making the toolbars
available in an add-in template as a custom toolbar, without resorting
to third party ribbon editors such as fellow MVP Patrick Schmid's
excellent
Ribbon Customizer.
You can
install a Word template as an add-in, without changing it from the *.dot
file type to the new *.dotm file type, but it will not display any of
the built-in toolbars. If you want the commands from the built-ins, you
must add them to your custom toolbar(s).
Clearly you
cannot do this if you don't have the earlier version of Word available,
but as it is a simple matter to install office 2007 alongside an earlier
version of Word, there is no reason when upgrading not to keep the older
version of Word. You can even have them both running at the same time
and switch between them, with the aid of a simple registry hack. |
| Note: |
If you
run Word 2007 and an earlier version such as Word 2003 together as
described below, there will be some minor interaction that may raise a
few eyebrows. They share the same temporary document numbering, thus if
you open a new document in (say) Word 2007 it might be given the
temporary working name Document1. The next document opened on either
version would be Document2.
Depending on which Word version was opened first in a given session, you
may get a surprise when you mail merge from Outlook when the Word 2007
that Outlook claims to be opening is in fact Word 2003 - even to the
extent that the 2003 help assistant thinks it has opened Word 2007,
which given that 2007 no longer has a help assistant is quite amusing!
Similarly you may find that if you attempt to open a mail attachment
directly from an e-mail message (not the best of practices) that again
Word 2003 may open to view the document. These phenomena are merely
quirks of operating the two versions together. |
| Hacking the Registry |
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Many people
are afraid of the registry as it is possible to make changes that can
stop Windows from running, but really the registry can be considered as
a large text file of instructions for running any program. Provided you
stick closely to the following, you will not screw anything up that
cannot easily be reversed.
If you
install Word 2007 alongside (say) Word 2003 then whichever you use will
take hold of a number of registry entries relating to Word's file
associations. This can severely slow down the use of Word and should
prevent them being used together. It doesn't have to be like that. You
can set up Word 2007 as your main word processor (which it will do
automatically on installation) and then before starting Word 2003 again,
make the following addition to the registry. |
| Note: |
The following instructions are for
Windows XP! |
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Start the
registry editor by typing Regedit in Windows > start > run and click OK |
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You can now
OK out of the dialog and close the registry editor. |
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Note: |
If you
prefer you can download a registry patch
to add the entry. |
| Creating the Toolbar |
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Open a new
blank document in the earlier version of Word and save it as a template
e.g. Toolbars.dot. Then tools > customize > |
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'OK' out of
the dialog and this will put a small empty toolbar over the text area of
the document. You can then populate that toolbar with commands either
from the built-in toolbars or add buttons to call macros. In the example
I have used commands from the forms toolbar as the forms tools are much
simpler to apply in 2007 from the old forms toolbar. |
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| Note: |
IMPORTANT! If you allow Word 2003 (or earlier) to automatically make
changes to normal.dot then the changes you may have made while copying
toolbar commands will be written to normal.dot. Before closing the old
Word version ensure that you set tools > options > save as shown in the
following illustration. Then when you close Word you should answer
NO when prompted to save the normal
template. |
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If you
are calling macros that are not installed in your Word 2007 normal
template, then use the macros organizer to copy them from your Word 2003
template to the new template.
The
organizer will also confirm that you have the required toolbar items
installed. When satisfied that all is as you require it, save and close
the template. |
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You will
probably have to move the macros from the add-in to the 2007 normal
template if the buttons are unable to find them, as you cannot edit the
toolbars further in Word 2007. |
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Copy or
move the template to the Word 2007 startup folder. By default this is
located at -
C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP.
Then on
restarting Word 2007, the template is loaded with Word to make the
toolbars buttons available via the Add-Ins tab of the ribbon. You will
have to experiment with what functions will still work and what won't,
but in practice many of the older tools will still work quite happily in
Word 2007 |
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If you wish
you can add the 'toolbars' to the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar) also: |
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This adds a
button as shown below, which when clicked produces the toolbars as shown
in the following illustration. |
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