How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

What does your Ribbon look like? Can you see all of the icons and options, or are they hidden? One of the common questions I hear from participants in my speaking and training sessions for Microsoft Office programs is why their Ribbon looks different than mine because their Ribbon has “disappeared.”

Although the Microsoft Office Ribbon is command central for your Office programs, the Ribbon can be minimized when you want more vertical screen space to focus on your work. To learn more, follow the steps below in this article or video.

How to Hide or Display the Microsoft Office Ribbon

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

To collapse or restore the Ribbon, try these options:

  • Right‑click the Ribbon or Quick Access toolbar and select Collapse the Ribbon from the shortcut menu. Repeat again and uncheck the option to restore the Ribbon.
  • Double‑click on the active tab to collapse. Double‑click on any tab to re‑display the full Ribbon.
  • Minimize the Ribbon using the [Ctrl] + [F1] toggle, which leaves only the tabs. Press [Ctrl] + [F1] again to restore the Ribbon.
  • Click once on the Ribbon Display Options button in the upper‑right corner of the program window (next to the Windows management buttons). Choose from options to Auto-hide Ribbon, Show Tabs, Show Tabs and Commands. The look of this button varies with each version of Microsoft Office.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

Unless you use it frequently, the Auto-hide Ribbon option might be too extreme as it can be easy to forget you enabled this feature on purpose. If you choose Show Tabs or any of the other choices listed above, you’ll free up more vertical space yet still see the tab names.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

When you want to work with a command while the Ribbon is minimized, simply click a tab containing a tool you want to use, and the Ribbon will display until you make your choice. Then, it will disappear again as you continue to work. Whether you use a keyboard shortcut or a mouse action, it’s easy to customize how you want to display the Microsoft Office Ribbon. And no more disappearing Ribbon … at least not by accident!

Featured, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, Office 365 /

See the 'simplified' Office toolbar for Microsoft 365

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20 October 2022

The latest Microsoft Office 365 for Windows has a new and, to date, undocumented, toolbar or “personalized Office experience”.  This ‘toolbar just for you’ is both more and less than it appears.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

The toolbar is an effort to declutter the top or title bar of the Office apps. Microsoft has crowded out the title bar in recent years so now they’re offering the option of moving the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) to a row of its own and instead of the full ribbon.  The company isn’t calling is a move of the QAT but that’s what they’ve done.

  • Simplified toolbar in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
  • Add Buttons
  • Switching between toolbar and full ribbon
  • Inside the ‘new’ toolbar
  • Totally changing the new toolbar
  • Simplified means dumbing down or hiding
  • What about Autosave?

Simplified toolbar in Word, Excel and PowerPoint

The first most people will see of the toolbar is in Word 365, Excel 365 or PowerPoint 365 for Windows with a notice like this.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

Note: we’re describing the feature as it’s appearing in the latest Office 365 Insiders build. It may well change or be dropped before it becomes public.

Click on ‘Create My Toolbar’ and you’ll see something like this. The ribbon tabs plus a new, full-width toolbar.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

The Personalized toolbar appears to be made up of some standard buttons (Undo, Redo, Font, Font Size etc) plus a few previously on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Add Buttons

Add more buttons to the toolbar by right-clicking on any ribbon button and choosing ‘Add to toolbar’.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

Switching between toolbar and full ribbon

There are several ways to switch between the full ribbon and the minimized ‘tabs and toolbar’.

Bottom right of the ribbon/toolbar is a pulldown menu to choose between ‘Classic’ and ‘Toolbar’.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

Double-clicking on any ribbon tab will also switch between minimized and full ribbon.  At this time the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F1 is not working, we assume/hope that’s a beta software glitch (yes, we’ve reported the problem to Microsoft).

Inside the ‘new’ toolbar

As we’ve already mentioned the new ‘personalized’ toolbar is really the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Here’s my Word 365 in ‘Classic’ Quick Access Toolbar mode (above) and the new toolbar mode (below).

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

You can see that the new mode removes the two personalized buttons from the QAT and puts them on the far-right of the new toolbar.

If you switch back and forth between the two views, the customized buttons will move as well.

Totally changing the new toolbar

Right-click on the new toolbar and choose ‘Customize’ to reveal the familiar Quick Access Toolbar customization dialog that’s been in Office for over a decade.

How do I show the toolbar in Word 365?

The whole toolbar can be changed from here.

  • Add buttons / menus
  • Remove buttons / menus
  • Move items left/right along the toolbar.

It’ll be interesting to see how this feature develops. 

Windows 11 Voice Access works with the simplified ribbon

Simplified means dumbing down or hiding

The simplified toolbar might suit some people but I suspect that anyone beyond really basic novice level will soon hate it.

A single line of buttons isn’t enough. There’ll always been options that customers will want but can’t see in front of them. Support people will get a lot more calls from Office users asking where a particular feature is … answer: use the full ribbon and it’ll reappear.

Microsoft has this thing about ‘simplifying’ the interface, forgetting that the original purpose of the ribbon was to display as many Office features as possible so that users could see the many options available.

‘Simplifying’ is their euphemism for ‘dumbing down’ or hiding the power of Office as if it’s something scary. Complexity isn’t a vice, but don’t try telling Microsoft that.

What about Autosave?

Making more room on the title bar is a good thing. What a pity Microsoft won’t use that notion to remove the overly large Autosave label and slider.  The company is full of platitudes about ‘listening’ to customers and ‘exploring’ the possibilities but doesn’t do anything.

Shameless corporate self-promotion will, as always, beat customers needs.

Make any Office ribbon more useful for you
How to use Excel’s Accessibility Ribbon 
Easily create and customize your own tab on Office Ribbon
Why is there a vending machine on the Office ribbon?

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How do I get my toolbar on Office 365?

Showing the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon – To display the Quick Access toolbar below the ribbon instead of above click the down arrow and then choose Show Below the Ribbon. The Toolbar will now display below the ribbon as shown below.

How do I keep the toolbar from disappearing in Word 365?

Right‑click the Ribbon or Quick Access toolbar and select Collapse the Ribbon from the shortcut menu. Repeat again and uncheck the option to restore the Ribbon. Double‑click on the active tab to collapse. Double‑click on any tab to re‑display the full Ribbon.

Where is my Quick Access toolbar in Word 365?

Show or hide the Quick Access Toolbar Right-click in the ribbon and do either of the following: If the Quick Access Toolbar is shown, select Hide Quick Access Toolbar. If the Quick Access Toolbar is hidden, select Show Quick Access Toolbar.

How do I enable the toolbar in Word?

Click Toolbars, and in the list on the left side of the window, highlight the toolbar you wish to restore. Click Restore or Reset. In the dialog box that appears, click OK to reset the toolbar.