Customize the Places Bar

I run Office 2003 at home and at work. At home, for some reason my Places Bar (the column of folder shortcuts that show up when you save or open an Office document) hasn’t been showing the My Documents folder. I’ve always meant to look into how to fix this, but never actually.

Well, today’s edition of Scot’s Newsletter solved the problem for me:

In Office 2003 and XP (a.k.a. Office 2002), Microsoft added basic user interface-based controls for customizing the Places bar. Follow these steps to add a new folder or container to your Places bar:

1. Use File > Open or File > Save As to open the folder you want to add.

2. Click the “Tools” item in the mini toolbar at the top of the File > Open or File > Save As dialog box.

3. Click the “Add to ‘My Places'” menu item.

That’s all there is to it. Repeat for other folders you’d like to add.

You can change the order of the icons on the Places bar by right clicking them and choosing Move Up or Move Down from the context menu. You can also delete any icons you add by right-clicking them and selecting Remove.

Thanks Scot!

Leave a Reply