Customizing Your Workspace

If you remember in my "Tool Bars Explained guide", I told you, you could customize your tool bars. Well it is actually customizing your whole Workspace. The great thing is it is very easy to do, and you can save the settings just in case for any reason you may have to reset the Workspace.

Workspace images © Corel®

At the top of your PSP choose VIew and slide your cursor down to Toolbars and Palettes. Slide your cursor over each of the drop down menu arrows so you can see what is listed there.

All of these items can be made to show all at once in your PSP Workspace by simply clicking on each one. If there is a ü next to the item, that means it is already open on your Workspace.

If you are like me, and you don't want to have all the clutter, you just simply want the tools that you use most, you can create your own Toolbar. Go to View->Customize and a pop up will appear.

Click on the Toolbars Tab and click on New.

This little itty bitty Toolbar will appear.

Now all you have to do is add your command Icons. This part is really easy. Go to View->Customize once again. Click on a Category. Under that Category click on one of the commands that you want on your toolbar. Left Click on the command, hold your mouse button and drag the command into your new toolbar.

As you add more Commands the new toolbar will expand. That's it. That's all it takes to make your own toolbar! Now you can go back to View->Toolbars/Palettes an unü those toolbars and palettes that are cluttering up your Workspace.

Just like customizing your own toolbars, you can also customize how  your Workspace looks.

PSP normally docks all your main palettes on the right side of your workspace by default. Well I didn't want my Materials Palette, Layers Palette, and Overview Palette grouped together because it was a pain in the toosh going from layer to layer with such a small space to do it in. So I docked my Layers palette on the left side of my screen. Here is what my workspace looks like now, and it is so much more convenient for me.

Now, here is how you move them around. Left click and hold on the very upper portion of the palette or toolbar that you wish to move. Drag to the desired location of your workspace. Sometimes PSP gets a little touchy (docks it horizontally instead of vertically ) so you might have to try docking it several times to your desired location. When it misbehaves, I just move the toolbar or palette more gently to its location.

There ya go!! See how easy that was?? Nothin' to it! Now all ya have to do is save your workspace. Go to File->Workspace->Save, give it a name and hit OK! Now if for some reason something happens and you have to reset your workspace you wont have to do all that work all over again. Just go to File->Workspace->Load, choose your workspace and Wha La! You are done!

I hope you enjoyed this little tut. If you have any question please feel free to contact me!