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SPSS Toolbar Building

Summary

Toolbars can be very useful in SPSS. They allow users to do a lot of stuff with a single mouse click. However, some users may feel there's some limitations to their default configuration. An ideal way to get around these is to assemble your own toolbar.

Some limitations of standard toolbars

Most users will use three windows when they work with SPSS: the Data Editor, Syntax Window and Output Viewer. By default, each window has its own toolbar(s). Some limitations of their default configuration are

An alternative toolbar configuration

By assembling your own toolbar, you can choose exactly which tools you do or do not find useful. In contrast to default toolbars, you can display your own toolbar in all main SPSS windows simultaneously. The steps described below will quickly walk you through the process.

Creating a New Toolbar

After clicking View SPSS Menu Arrow Toolbars, you'll see two areas. The top area is only for toggling the visibility of those toobars available for any given SPSS window. Since we'd like to create a toolbar, we click Customize.

SPSS Toolbar - Create New

Populating Our New Toolbar

After clicking New we can choose a name for our toolbar and start editing it. Toolbar tools have been categorized. After selecting (clicking) one of the categories in the left main box, all tools belonging to it will appear in the right main box. From there, we can drag-and-drop the tools we find useful onto our toolbar.

SPSS Toolbar - Add New Tools Dragging Tools onto the Custom Toolbar

After clicking 'Continue', we return to the Customize Toolbar window. Under 'Show' each toolbar's visibility can be toggled. Under 'Name' a toolbar can be selected for editing or deleting. Note that the default Data Editor toolbar can be edited but not deleted.

SPSS Toolbar Settings SPSS Main Toolbar Settings

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