How to Create Desktop Shortcuts for Office Programs on PC or Mac

This wikiHow teaches you how to create a new shortcut icon for a Microsoft Office app on your computer, and save it to your computer's desktop. Open the Start menu on your computer. Click the Start icon in the lower-left corner of your...

Method 1 of 2:

Windows

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Open the Start menu on your computer. Click the Start icon in the lower-left corner of your desktop to open the Start menu.
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Right-click the Office program you want to create a shortcut for. Find the Office program you want to shortcut, and right-click on its name or icon. This will open your options on a pop-up menu.
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Hover over More on the right-click menu. A sub-menu will pop up with more options.
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Click Open file location on the More menu. This will open a new file explorer window, and locate the selected program's original EXE file.
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Right-click the EXE file in the file explorer window. Your right-click options will pop up.
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Hover over Send to on the right-click menu. This will show the available options you can use to send this file to another device or location.
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Select Desktop (create shortcut) on the Send to menu. This will create a shortcut to the selected program, and save it on your desktop.
1. Alternatively, you can select Create shortcut on the right-click menu. This will create a shortcut in the same folder. You can then drag this shortcut to your desktop manually.

Method 2 of 2:

Mac

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Open a new Finder window. Click the blue-and-white smiley face icon on the far-left of your Mac's Dock at the bottom of your screen. This will open a new Finder window.
1. If you already have a Finder window open, clicking the Finder icon will only switch you to the open window. In this case, press ⌘ Command+N to open a new Finder window without closing the other one.
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Click Applications on the left sidebar. This will open your Mac's Applications folder in your current Finder window.
1. If you don't see a sidebar on the left-hand side, press ⌥ Option+⌘ Cmd+S on your keyboard. The sidebar will show up on the left of your current window.
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Select the Office app you want to create a shortcut for. Find the Office app you want to use, and click on its name to select and highlight the program.
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Click the File tab on the top-left. This button is on the menu bar in the upper-left corner of your screen. It will open a drop-down menu.
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Click Make Alias on the File menu. This will create a shortcut to the selected program, and save it next to the original app in the Applications folder.
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Drag the shortcut to the desktop. You can simply click and drag the app shortcut (alias), and move it from the Applications folder to your Mac's desktop.

click menu open shortcut

Jessica Tanner

Update 04 March 2020

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