I learned in Guy Hart-Davis’ excellent Word Annoyances (O’Reilly) that Word has a “work menu” that lists the files you designate so you can easily load ones that you use frequently. To install it, go to Tools > Customize > Built-in Menus and drag “Work Menu” onto your tool bar. Nice!

But I couldn’t figure out how to remove an entry from the list. PCPlus has an answer, and, although it’s ridiculously complex, it’s the best one I could find. If you know of an easier way to delete an entry from the Work Menu, let me know. Anyway, PCPlus says to go to Tools > Customize > All Commands and drag ‘”ToolsCustomizeRemoveMenuShortcut” to your toolbar. (Right-click on it and rename it before you close the Customize dialogue box.) Now when you click on it and then click on the Work menu, it lets you click on an entry you want to remove.

Omigod, didn’t anyone at Microsoft use the Work menu before it shipped?

By the way, if the PCPlus technique doesn’t work, this page has a macro that supposedly will do the trick. I haven’t tried it, so take it as is:

Public Sub DeleteWorkMenuItems()
Dim i As Long
Dim nDelete As Long
With WorkMenuItems
For i = .Count To 1 Step -1
nDelete = MsgBox( _
Prompt:=”Delete “”” & .Item(i).Name & “””?”, _
Buttons:=vbYesNoCancel, _
Title:=”Delete Item from menu”)
If nDelete = vbCancel Then Exit For
If nDelete = vbYes Then .Item(i).Delete
Next i
End With
End Sub

It also has a macro you can attach as an item on your work menu. (If you’re not comfortable with Word macros, skip it! I am not responsible, etc.) [Tags: annoyances WordAnnoyances word Microsoft tips]

Categories: misc dw