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888-686-3025Microsoft Excel Tips: How to Save Time by Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar
The Quick Access toolbar is the list of tools that you can keep at your fingertips when working in Microsoft Excel. With this toolbar, you can quickly press the buttons that will take you to specific functions: most notably, the ones that you use the most often.
Microsoft Excel comes standard with the actions that people, in general, are most likely to take highlighted in the Quick Access toolbar. However, your data entry needs may be different from the standard option, which means you may want different things to be available. By customizing your Quick Access toolbar, you can keep those vital options at your fingertips.
This will give you several options, including New, Open, Quick Print, and many others. You can quickly and easily use these options to customize your toolbar. By clicking on those options, you can add the ones that you feel will be most beneficial to you to your list.
Strategy #2: Add options as you find them.
Microsoft Excel allows for a variety of custom formatting options. Some of them, you will use very frequently–even those that don’t automatically appear on your Quick Access toolbar.
As you realize that you’re using those options often, you may want to consider including them as part of your Quick Access toolbar.
First, hover over the tool. Right click on it, then left click “add to Quick Access toolbar.” This will make the option automatically appear on your Quick Access toolbar.
For features that offer multiple options, you may want to just hover over the specific function that you use most often. On the other hand, if you use multiple functions, you can add the larger function option to the Quick Access bar.
Customizing your bar makes it highly usable.
How to Move the Quick Access toolbar below the ribbon.
Where it’s currently located, the Quick Access toolbar is sharing space with the other options available in that space. Want to move it to the bottom of your document, where it’s easier to see and has more room? Left click on the drop-down arrow, then select “show below the ribbon.” This will move the Quick Access toolbar to the bottom of the screen, where it can spread the full width of the screen.
Strategy #3: Use the More Commands option.
Go to the Quick Access toolbar, then click the More Commands option. They will take you to the Quick Access toolbar, tab, or category. It will show you the tools that are currently part of the Quick Access toolbar. From that menu, you can both add options to your Quick Access toolbar and rearrange the current options so that they’re in the order that make the most sense to you. You can customize that order based on your specific needs.
Any changes that you make to the Quick Access toolbar are made across all of your Microsoft Excel documents, not just in a specific document. As a result, you won’t want to make customizations that you don’t want to apply to all of your worksheets. However, if you utilize specific tools on a regular basis, it’s good to have them at your fingertips, where you can access them with ease–and without having to worry about memorizing keyboard shortcuts.
The Quick Access toolbar is just one of the tools that you can use to streamline your Microsoft Excel usage and make it faster and easier to take care of your data entry tasks. Do you want to learn more about those available strategies? Contact us or check out our library of tech tips today.
