Set Appearances: Customize Explorer's look to your needs.

• Show the toolbars you want. Add new function. Change the order.
• Slide the parts of the toolbar into new places.
• Change the size of the font.
• Turn images and multimedia off for faster page display.

Explorer Toolbars

The Toolbar, Address Bar, Links and Status bar may be toggled off for more page room.

Click on View, then Toolbar. Select one (or all) of Standard Buttons, Address Bar and Links to remove the check mark. The window will be re-displayed without the Toolbar and the Address Bar. Note that everything except the menubar has disappeared. This is called kiosk mode. To reinstate the toolbars, click on View | Toolbar and click again on Standard Buttons, Address Bar and Links. To hide the Status Bar, click on View | Status Bar to remove the checkmark. Repeat to toggle it back on.

Make your Toolbar smaller: choose small icons or remove the labels.

1. Go to View | Toolbars Customize
2. Click on the drop down menu beside Icon options.
3. Select Small icons.
4. Close.
5. See what happens to your Toolbar. If the icons are too small, select Large icons from the menu.
6. For no labels,use View | Toolbars | Customize and select No text labels or Selective text on right.

Add Functions to the Toolbar

Add a Size button or Full Screen button to your toolbar.

1. Go to View | Toolbars | Customize
2. Choose Size from the left hand menu of Available toolbar buttons.
3. Click on Add. This will put Size in the right hand menu of Current toolbar buttons.
4. Close. You should now see the Size button in you toolbar. Click on it to view your choices.

Change the order of buttons

Use the Current toolbar buttons menu to move items around with Move Up and Move Down options. Move Down will move your button to the right on the toolbar and Move Up will move it to the left.)

Toolbar Sliders

The Explorer toolbar is full of surprises. With a few line grabs using the mouse you can collapse the Buttons, Address, and Links to a single line.

Can you create this?

1. Position your mouse arrow over the bottom edge of the section. (It becomes a double-headed vertical line). Drag the line upward. Watch how each line compresses into the one above, until Address, Buttons, and Links are all one.

2. Now grab the vertical line that separates Address from the buttons. (Again, it becomes a double-headed line, in this case horizontal.) Slide the line to the left and note how the sequence changes. You can slide it to the right also. You can do this with the Links vertical line also.

   

3. To reinstate the full view, grab the horizontal line again and drag downwards. Each of the sections are restored.

4. Hours of puzzle-full delight can be spent rearranging this toolbar.

Font Size

Perhaps you would like to see the words on this page in a larger font size? In the menubar, click on View | Text Size and then choose a size that's right for you.

Advanced - Multimedia

Customize more page settings and browser options under Tools | Internet Options | Advanced. For the most part, the Microsoft default values are fine. Use this option panel if you want to turn off multimedia.

Multimedia: Turn off automatic downloads of images, sound files, animation and videos. This is recommended only if you have a modem slower than 28.8 K bps.

1. Scroll down the advanced options list to the Multimedia section
2. Remove the checkmarks by clicking on them.
3. Click on them again to reinstate these options
4. OK to make changes take effect.

Where to next?

Learn more about Explorer functions - such as Favorites and Preferences, by using Explorer's documentation. Get Help will show you how.