Customizing PowerPoint's right-click popup menus

Problem

PowerPoint generally does a good job of guessing what commands you might want to use in any given situation and automatically putting them on the popup menu you get when you right click nearly anything.

Sometimes it doesn't put what you want there though. We'll show you how to fix that.

Customize the right-click (or "Shortcut") menu

We're going to add a Paste Special command to the popup menu you get when you right-click on the slide you're working on. These instructions are for PowerPoint 2002 or 2003. Earlier versions may work differently; later versions don't allow this sort of customization.

• Choose Tools, Customize from the main menu bar.
• In the Customize dialog box click the Toolbars tab.
• In the Toolbars list find "Shortcut Menus" and put a checkmark next to it.
• A Shortcut Menus toolbar will appear. Find it on your screen.
• Click the Commands tab
• Click "Edit" in the Categories list on the left
• Find Paste Special (or whatever other command you're interested in) in the Commands list on the right.
• Drag the command to the Draw button on the Shortcut Menus toolbar and pause while it opens the menu. Don't let go of the mouse button.
• Continue dragging down to Slide Background. Keep the mouse button down while you wait for the Slide Background menu to open.
• Drag onto the newly opened popup menu and let the mouse button go when the highligh bar is where you want the new menu item to appear.
• Press ESC to finish and dismiss the Customize dialog box.

Now copy something to the clipboard, right click on the slide and voila ... Paste Special is now on the popup menu.

Spend a little time studying the different menus (and the items on them) on the Shortcuts toolbar while you've got it open. It's a bit confusing at first because you're not really customizing a toolbar, you're customizing the shortcut menu that appears when you right-click different things. For example, you might want to add other commands to, say, the right-click menu you get when you have a Shape select or when you're editing text. By choosing the correct Shortcut Menus toolbar button and menu name beneath it, you can do this quite easily.

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