AutoCAD Tips & Tutorials

AutoCAD Tutorial: Display a lost custom toolbar

When you create a custom toolbar that you use regularly, you may accidentally close it and then not be sure how to open it again. Jay had this experience after using my tip "Create a custom toolbar in AutoCAD 2006 or later."

He wrote, "Thanks for the "Create a custom toolbar in ACAD 2006" article... It was very easy to follow and I created a very helpful toolbar with my favorite commands. I have come to depend on it after about a week. I accidentally closed the toolbar and now I can't figure how to reload it..."

There are two methods. The first is to right-click in a gray, empty toolbar space, to the right or below an existing toolbar.

There you'll find your toolbar under the Custom category.

However, a better way is to include the toolbar in your workspace. Then, whenever you open AutoCAD and use that workspace, your toolbar will be there, even if you previously closed it.

Follow these steps:

1. Open the Workspaces toolbar (if necessary, right-click any toolbar and choose Workspaces), and click the Workspace Settings button to open the Workspace Settings dialog box.

2. At the bottom, in the When Switching Workspaces section, make sure that Do Not Save Changes to Workspace is selected. This option makes sure that even if you close toolbars, palettes, etc. those changes don't become part of the workspace. It helps ensure that you won't lose that toolbar again.
3. Type cui on the command line to open the Customize User Interface dialog box.
4. In the upper-left pane, expand the Workspace item and choose the workspace that you usually use. (You can do this process for as many workspaces as you want.)
5. In the Workspace Contents panel that appears on the right, click the Customize Workspace button. This places checkboxes to the left of every interface item in the upper-left pane.
6. Expand the Toolbar items in the Workspace Contents panel.
7. Expand the Partial CUI Files item in the upper-left pane, then expand the Custom and Toolbar items. (This is where you should have created your custom toolbar.)

8. Check the checkbox next to your custom toolbar and it appears in the Workspace Contents pane, in the list of toolbars.
9. Click OK to close the Customize User Interface dialog box and your custom toolbar is now a defined component of your workspace.

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