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Question: Q: MS Word 2011 for Mac toolbar missing and cannot get back. Tried disabling toolbars, deleting Normal.dotx to no avail. Sometimes just pops up for no reason. Yup, same problems here with toolbars not working, disappearing, etc. Then I saw another contributor's suggestion about finding and revising the.plist file for Word (in the.
Symptoms
While using Word for Mac one or more Toolbars are missing and cannot be added.
Cause
This behavior can be caused by one of these things:
- The oval button in the upper-right corner of the document was clicked. This button 'toggles' display of toolbars on and off.
- There is an issue with the Normal template in Word.
- The toolbars or menus are modified.
Resolution
To resolve this problem, try the following methods.
Method 1: Make sure that tool bar display is not turned off
- In the upper-right corner of the window click the oval button.NoteWhen this button is clicked, it hides all the toolbars. A second click causes the toolbars to be displayed.
- If the toolbars reappear, quit, and then restart Word to make sure that the appropriate toolbars are displayed.
If Method 1 did not resolve the problem, try Method 2.
Method 2: Reset the toolbars and menus in Word
You can reset the toolbars and menus in the Customize Toolbars and Menus option, any saved customization is removed, and all settings are reverted to the original default settings.
- Open Word.
- Go to View in the menu.
- Choose Toolbars.
- Select Customize Toolbars and Menus.
- Select Toolbars and Menus in the top of the Customize Toolbars and Menus window.
- Select the item in the list you want to reset (Menu Bar, Standard, Formatting).
- Click Reset.
- Click OK when getting prompt: 'Are you sure you want to reset the changes made...'
- Click OK.
Note
When View is missing from the menu, then you can also Control Click the Standard Toolbar and go to Customize Toolbars and Menus here.
If Method 2 did not resolve the problem, try Method 3.
Method 3: Create a new Normal template Note
When a new Normal template is created, any saved customization is removed, and all settings are reverted to the original default settings.
Step 1: Quit all programs
To quit active applications, follow these steps:
- On the Apple menu, click Force Quit.
- Select an application in the 'Force Quit Applications' window.
- Click Force Quit.
- Repeat the previous steps until you quit all active applications.
Warning
When an application is force quit, any unsaved changes to open documents are not saved.
When you are finished, click the red button in the upper-left corner and proceed to Step 2.
Step 2: Word 2008 and 2011: Move the Normal.dotm template file to the Trash
- Quit all Microsoft Office applications.
- On the Go menu, click Home.
- Open Library. NoteThe Library folder is hidden in MAC OS X Lion. To display this folder, hold down the OPTION key while you click the Go menu.
- Select the Application Support folder.
- Select the Microsoft folder.
- Open the Office folder.
- Open the User Templates folder.
- Move Normal.dotm to the Trash.
- Start Word, a new Normal.dotm template will be created when you choose Quit Word in the Word menu.
Note
When you had Word 2004 on your Mac previously and you now have Word 2008 or Word 2011, also check if the Word 2004 Normal file is present on the system, if so, trash this Normal template file as well.
Step 3: Word 2004: Move the Normal template file to the Trash
- Quit all Microsoft Office applications.
- On the Go menu, click Home.
- Select the Documents folder.
- Select the **Microsoft User Data **folder.
- Move Normal to the Trash.
- Start Word, a new Normal template will be created when you choose Quit Word in the Word menu.
In Office 2011 for Mac, mail merge works by bringing data stored in a data table into Word 2011. A good data table’s first row (and only the first row) has the headers, also called fields or column names. All subsequent rows contain data. There are no merged cells in a data table, and there are no completely empty rows or columns, although empty cells are allowed.
Word can use many different data sources to perform a mail merge:
- A table in Word.
- An Excel worksheet or data range.
- A FileMaker Pro database file.
- Advanced users can use ODBC and VBA to connect to practically any data source, including Microsoft Access, SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL.
If you don’t have a data table, the New Data Source option lets you make a data table from scratch in a new Word document using a series of dialogs. This option is fine for small databases up to a few thousand records.
Choosing fields for a mail merge data source
When you choose New Data Source, you’re presented with the Create Data Source dialog. First, you define fields for your new data. By default, you’re presented with some commonly used fields. In the Placeholder List field, you can type new header names and add them to the list by clicking the Add Placeholder button.
When you’re done choosing field names, click the OK button and you will be prompted to save the new Word document. Give your new data source a name and then save the file.
Filling in the data for your mail merge in Word 2011 for Mac
As soon as your file is saved, you’ll be presented with an easy-to-use database input form called Data Form.
The left side of Data Form shows your field names. Drag the scroll bar if all the fields don’t fit in the dialog. In the center column, you type the data entries for the current record. The current record’s number is shown in the Record navigation at the bottom of the Data Form.
In the Data Form dialog, press Tab or the down-arrow key to advance to the next field within a record. Press Shift-Tab or the up-arrow key to select the previous field.
![For For](https://cdn3.macworld.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3655085/lost-word-files-mac_thumb800.jpg)
When working with your data table in Word, you can edit directly in the table. Turn on the database toolbar by choosing View→Toolbars→Database from the menu bar.
Don’t let bullies try to say you shouldn’t do these things in Word. If you like Word and are comfortable with these tools, it’s perfectly fine to use Word for a basic database. You can use the Tables tab of the Ribbon with the Database toolbar to manage your table’s style, options, and borders.