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About this lesson
Find and add menu items and buttons that you frequently use to your ribbon or quick access toolbar to give you faster access to the PowerPoint features you probably use the most.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
Exercise files
Download the PowerPoint presentation used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Customizing the PowerPoint Interface.pptx10.8 MB
Quick reference
Customizing the PowerPoint Interface
Customizing the ribbon or the Quick Access Toolbar to find and use hidden commands.
When to use
To change or customize the PowerPoint ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).
Instructions
Ribbon
- Either:
- Right click anywhere on the ribbon and select Customize the Ribbon, or
- On the ribbon, click the File tab, Options, and then click the Customize Ribbon tab.
- In the Choose commands from group, drop the arrow down and select All Commands.
- Browse to and select the item Accessibility Checker.
- In the Customize the Ribbon group, drop the arrow down and select Main Tabs, and then select the Home tab.
- Click the New Group button, and then click the Rename button.
- Rename the Display name to “My Items”. Select a Symbol from the list, and then click OK.
- With the My Items (Custom) tab selected, click the Add button.
- Click OK on the PowerPoint Options dialog box.
- On the ribbon, click the Home tab. The Accessibility Checker button will be visible within the My Items group.
- Either:
- Right click anywhere on the ribbon and select Customize Quick Access Toolbar, or
- On the ribbon, click the File tab, Options, and then click the Quick Access Toolbar tab.
- In the Choose commands from group, drop the arrow down and select All Commands.
- Browse to and select the item Accessibility Checker.
- In the Customize Quick Access Toolbar group, drop the arrow down and select either:
- For all documents (default) to make the button available for all document you work on, or
- For [name of presentation] to make the button available in the current document only.
- Click the Add button.
- Click OK on the PowerPoint Options dialog box.
- The Accessibility Checker button will be visible on the Quick Access Toolbar.
Also note:
After an item is added to the ribbon or QAT, you may need to do further detective work to understand how the feature functions.
You can add any button on the ribbon quickly to the QAT: Right-click the button and select Add to the Quick Access Toolbar.
Login to download- 00:05 Sometimes in PowerPoint there is some task that you wanted to just take a little bit
- 00:09 of time and you wish could be done faster.
- 00:12 In this video, we're going to look at customizing both the ribbon and the QAT,
- 00:16 or the Quick Access toolbar.
- 00:18 To bring a feature to the forefront that allows us to perform a common task that
- 00:23 may not be immediately available on either the ribbon or the QAT.
- 00:28 Now on the particular slide that I've inserted off the internet, and always
- 00:31 remember to respect the copyright of the owner, it has some effects applied to it.
- 00:36 Now it appears as though there is an oval, boundary shape that has been applied.
- 00:41 As well as some sort of artistic effect.
- 00:45 I'd like to be able to reset this picture back to what it look like when it was
- 00:47 inserted before the various effects were applied.
- 00:51 Now to do that manually, I would click on this image, go to the Format tab.
- 00:57 And if I wanted to reset the artistic effect, I would go to the none.
- 01:06 But it's still got the oval applied so Ctrl+Z to undo that.
- 01:10 Another way is to click this little drop down arrow and go reset picture and size.
- 01:18 And wow, there it is, I'll zoom down with the Ctrl key on the keyboard.
- 01:23 And the scroll of the mouse and you can see that it's a very big image indeed.
- 01:27 Ctrl+Z to undo that.
- 01:31 Now let's have a look at putting this particular feature
- 01:34 on both the ribbon as well as on the QAT.
- 01:36 Now the QAT is this little icon just here.
- 01:40 You can drop down the little arrow at the side.
- 01:43 And look at customizing the Quick Access Toolbar.
- 01:46 And some common commands are there.
- 01:49 Or you can right-click and show the Quick Access Toolbar above the ribbon,
- 01:55 which is where it quite often is when you first open PowerPoint.
- 01:59 So we will set that back below the ribbon.
- 02:03 And you can right-click on here, and customize the QAT,
- 02:08 as well as customizing the ribbon.
- 02:10 Indeed, you can get the same options by clicking on the ribbon.
- 02:15 So let's go to customize the ribbon.
- 02:20 Now notice in here we have, Choose Commands From.
- 02:24 So we can select Popular Commands,
- 02:26 Commands Not in the Ribbon, or All Commands.
- 02:30 And then there is a destination such as a Main Tab,
- 02:34 All Tabs, or a particular tool tab within a tab.
- 02:39 Now, I'm going to go to All Commands and click on a particular thing.
- 02:46 And, the feature was called reset picture and size.
- 02:50 So, if I click R gets me down to the list of things that start with R.
- 02:57 Now here are the resets.
- 02:58 Reset picture and size.
- 03:04 Now I want to stick that, and
- 03:09 click on the Home tab, click Add.
- 03:12 And then I get an error that says commands need to be added to custom groups.
- 03:16 To create a group, pick a tab at the list and then click New Group.
- 03:21 Okay, so that makes sense.
- 03:22 Again, so I want to put it on the Home tab.
- 03:25 So I click New Group.
- 03:28 Now New Group Custom is a little bit weird.
- 03:30 So I will rename that.
- 03:33 And it makes it logical to call it maybe Pictures.
- 03:40 It seems as though I should select an icon.
- 03:42 So I very quickly, browse down to something that might catch my eye.
- 03:49 Sometimes I wish there were more, set up a little palette, click OK.
- 03:53 And there we now have a custom group called Pictures on the Home tab.
- 04:00 Now what we're going to do is again find that feature and
- 04:02 add it to the pictures one.
- 04:06 So All Commands, click R to go down to the list that begin with R.
- 04:12 So there are the resets, reset picture and
- 04:16 size, add, and there is reset picture and size.
- 04:20 When I click OK, suddenly,
- 04:23 the pictures group appears on the ribbon, and it says reset picture and size.
- 04:29 So I clicked that and zoom out, and there is our image.
- 04:35 Ctrl+Z to undo.
- 04:37 So that's a very good way of moving a particular feature to where you
- 04:41 might need it more often.
- 04:43 However, when I go to maybe the insert tab or
- 04:47 the transition tab, that particular feature disappears.
- 04:51 So it would be good to put that on the QAT or Quick Access Toolbar as well.
- 04:57 So right-click, Customize, Quick Access Toolbar All Commands,
- 05:04 click R for the list of Rs.
- 05:08 Reset picture and
- 05:12 size, add, and notice that you can move them up or move them down.
- 05:17 Click OK.
- 05:19 And there's that feature, Reset picture & size available,
- 05:23 I click on that, and zoom out, and there again is our picture.
- 05:28 And I can apply different effects to that.
- 05:30 So remember that customizing both the ribbon and the QAT or
- 05:33 the Quick Access Toolbox is very simple.
- 05:36 And indeed there are some features that may be located in particular
- 05:39 parts of the ribbon.
- 05:40 And you might not where they are.
- 05:42 So explore and have a look around because it's really useful to be able to find and
- 05:47 bring commands to the surface that may not be available.
- 05:50 But also have a look around and
- 05:52 explore because there may be a good feature that you stumble across.
- 05:56 And that's also very awesome.
- 05:59 One other thing before we go,
- 06:01 here's any of these particular buttons that you see on the ribbon.
- 06:05 You can right-click and go add to the Quick Access Toolbar.
- 06:11 And that's just the speedy way of making something available as well.
- 06:15 So good luck with that, it's a great feature of PowerPoint.
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