Computer Chit Chat

So many menus

I received an email asking me for a little help understanding the menus within applications. Let me see what I can do to help.

Sometimes people get a little confused within an application because there are so many things going on. If you’re not familiar it could be a little intimidating. I remember when I first started using a computer I broke into a sweat anytime I opened most applications. It all looked so confusing because I hadn’t seen it before, and because I didn’t understand what it was that I was looking at. I recently received a question asking me about the different menus within an application. I’m going to do my best to explain what it is you’re seeing in there.

When you open an application, across the top of the screen you see the menu bar. All of the application’s menus are located within the menu bar. When you click or hover over one of the menus there, you will find a list of options or commands that can be chosen. Next to many of them you will see their corresponding keyboard shortcut. If you learn the keyboard shortcuts for the tasks you do the most you will find you aren’t in the menus nearly as much. Within the menus there is another menu called Toolbars. When you check an item a toolbar containing the commands from that menu will appear at the top of your screen. Toolbars can be customized to contain just the buttons you want by clicking the little arrow on the side of the toolbar. I love to have the formatting toolbar visible whenever possible.

That’s just a small dent in the big pile of information pertaining to menus. If you’re looking for something specific let me know and I’ll do my best to help.

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