OFF97: Cannot Dismiss Office Assistant With Keyboard (157414)

MORE INFORMATION

If you right-click the Office Assistant window in any Microsoft Office 97 program, one of the choices on the shortcut menu that appears is "Hide Assistant". Because the "H" in "Hide" is underlined, if you press "h" while the shortcut menu is visible, the Office Assistant will be dismissed. There is no way to achieve this using only the keyboard.

Microsoft provides examples of Visual Basic for Applications procedures for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. The Visual Basic procedures in this article are provided 'as is' and Microsoft does not guarantee that they can be used in all situations. While Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular macro, they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality, nor will they help you construct macros to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to consult one of the Microsoft Solution Providers. Solution Providers offer a wide range of fee-based services, including creating custom macros. For more information about Microsoft Solution Providers, call Microsoft Customer Information Service at (800) 426-9400.

It is possible, however, to write a Visual Basic for Applications macro to display or hide the Office Assistant. For example:

   Sub ToggleOfficeAssistant()
      Assistant.Visible = Not Assistant.Visible
   End Sub
				

When you run this macro, if the Office Assistant is visible, it will be dismissed. If the Office Assistant is not visible, it will be displayed. This macro will work in all programs included with Microsoft Office 97.

In Microsoft Excel 97, you can assign a shortcut key to the ToggleOfficeAssistant macro by running the following macro:

   Sub SetShortcutKey()
       Application.MacroOptions Macro:="ToggleOfficeAssistant", _
          HasShortcutKey:=True, ShortcutKey:="o"
   End Sub
				

Once you have run the SetShortcutKey macro, press CTRL+o (the letter "o") to run the ToggleOfficeAssistant macro and turn your Office Assistant on or off.