A toolbar is a row, column, or block of buttons with icons that you click to perform some action, choose a tool, or change a setting (Figure 1.22).

Toolbar buttons often duplicate menu functions, but they're more convenient because they're always visible-generally at one edge of the work area. Programs typically have several toolbars, each responsible for a group of tasks. In a word processor, for example, there's one toolbar for formatting text and paragraphs, and there's another for performing file operations.

Tips

• Many programs display tooltips or screentips-short descriptions of toolbar buttons and icons that appear temporarily when the mouse pointer pauses on them (Figure 1.23).


• A toolbar button with a small triangular arrow pointing right or down will reveal its own small, self-contained menu when clicked (Figure 1.24). See also "Menu buttons" earlier in this chapter.


• Often, you can customize toolbars, create new ones, and move them around onscreen to suit your preferences. Experiment. Right-click a toolbar to see whether a shortcut menu appears. Click an empty area of a toolbar (usually its left side), and try dragging to dock it at an edge of the window or just let it float in the middle.


• Some toolbars have toggle buttons that push in (turn on) with one click and pop out (turn off) with the next. They can set global options or conditions that apply to only the current selection (Figure 1.25).


• Toolbars can appear and disappear automatically, depending on what you're doing in the program.

Figure 1.24 In Internet Explorer, the Recent Pages button's menu lets you revisit websites that you've seen recently.

Figure 1.25 Toggle buttons stay pressed until they're clicked a second time. These pushed-in buttons boldface and left-align the selected text in a word processor.

Figure 1.22 Toolbars from Windows Explorer (top) and Photoshop (middle). The bottom toolbar shows Microsoft's standard Office icons, which many programs adopt for consistency. Left to right: New, Open, Save, Print, Print Preview, Spell Check, Cut, Copy, Paste, Format Painter, Undo, and Redo.

Figure 1.23 A wordprocessing tooltip. Some tooltips also give the keyboard shortcut for the command.