Customizing Toolbars

Illustrator was the first to offer the ability to create your own ‘custom’ toolbars, but they were ‘extra’ floating panels. In both Photoshop and Illustrator, you can now customize exactly which tools appear in the Tools panel and even how they are arranged.

In Illustrator

  • Clicking the ‘Edit Toolbar…’ icon in the toolbar brings up a panel that allows you to drag unwanted tools out of the toolbar or drag them back in if you change your mind
  • You can also drag & drop tools around within the toolbar in whatever arrange you like
  • Window > Toolbars – choose from the defaults [either ‘Advanced’ or ‘Basic’] or create your own custom one with ‘New Toolbar…’ [‘Manage Toolbars’ to rename, duplicate or delete existing custom toolbars]
  • Once you’ve created some custom toolbars, they will appear in this list. Selecting them adds a new ‘floating’ toolbar, which you can ‘dock’ to either side of the screen

In Photoshop

  • Click, hold then choose ‘Edit Toolbar…’ from the icon in the toolbar to show the ‘Customize Toolbar’ dialog box below
  • Drag & drop tools from the left to right that you consider to be ‘Extra’ and they will be gone. ‘Save Preset’ allows you to save as many as you want
  • Edit > Toolbars – is the other way to get to this same dialog box, where you can ‘Load Preset’
  • Restore Defaults – puts the toolbar back to it’s ‘factory default’ [presets are still saved]
  • Clear Tools – removes ALL tools, allowing you to drag back just the ones you want