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About this lesson

Set up the vital buttons you use most to make your work easier.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the Word document used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Quick Access Toolbar.docx
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Quick reference

The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)

Set up the vital buttons to make your work easier.

When to use

Customizing the QAT allows quick access to your most used commands.

Instructions

Customize the QAT  (located above the FILE ribbon) ​

  1. Click the dropdown arrow on the right side of the QAT.
  2. Add checkmarks to each item listed (see photo below).

  3. Click the last item on the list to "Show Below the Ribbon".
    OR
    Right-click the QAT and select “Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon”.

Further customize the QAT

  1. Click the drop down again and choose “More Commands”.
  2. Find “Save As” in the left-hand list and Click it;
    then click "Add>>" so it lands on the right-hand list of buttons.
       ​
  3. Rearrange the buttons by clicking the move-up and move-down arrows on the right side.
  4. Tip: As you find new buttons on the ribbons that you’d like to add,
    just Right Click the button and select “Add to Quick Access Toolbar”.

 

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  • 00:05 This lesson introduces the Quick Access Toolbar which is located above your
  • 00:08 ribbons, above the Home, and the Insert, and the Design ribbons.
  • 00:12 This little set of buttons right up here.
  • 00:15 The Quick Access Toolbar is sometimes referred to as a QAT.
  • 00:18 If you'll notice, on the very end of the QAT is a dropdown arrow.
  • 00:23 When you click that,
  • 00:24 you simply need to click each one of the actions underneath and then
  • 00:29 they'll be, those buttons will be added to security with the Quick Access tool bar.
  • 00:34 There are a couple of buttons here that you might decide you don't need and
  • 00:39 you simply uncheck those and they'll disappear.
  • 00:43 Now, the redundancy of hitting that list.
  • 00:45 I realize it's tedious, but it is what it is.
  • 00:49 So we need to go through, put the check marks on, and
  • 00:51 get rid of them if you don't want one, like this top one.
  • 00:53 The Automatic Save, I always want that to be on.
  • 00:56 I never wanna turn that off.
  • 00:57 I don't even want the at option on my QAT.
  • 01:00 So I'm going to uncheck that one, and as soon at I uncheck it,
  • 01:03 you'll see over here on the left that it's going to disappear.
  • 01:06 So I'll go ahead and uncheck that button, and now it is gone.
  • 01:10 Now I'd like to also move this underneath my ribbon.
  • 01:13 The reason I want it underneath the ribbon is so that it's closer to my work area.
  • 01:18 The purpose of the QAT is that it is the old standard toolbar
  • 01:22 which had all the best buttons readily available near our working area.
  • 01:26 So we simply move it by clicking at the very bottom of this list,
  • 01:30 Show Below the Ribbon.
  • 01:32 Now, keep in mind there is a second way to do the same thing,
  • 01:36 you can right-click and choose Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon.
  • 01:42 It is your personal preference, but there's two ways to get there.
  • 01:45 So I'll go ahead and click the Show Quick Access Below the Ribbon, and there it is,
  • 01:50 but now all the buttons have color on them,
  • 01:52 not just the white outline that they did above.
  • 01:56 We are going to go ahead and customize that so
  • 01:59 click the drop-down arrow again and way at the bottom you will see More Commands.
  • 02:04 When we click on the More Commands option, we get a dialog box.
  • 02:08 Now on this dialog box, the left hand side are all the current Popular Commands.
  • 02:13 The right hand side are your existing Quick Access Toolbar buttons.
  • 02:17 So I can come over here to the left, type the letter S and
  • 02:22 I will find the Save As button.
  • 02:24 Now, as soon as I double click the Save As button or
  • 02:27 I can single click the word Add, it's going to land over here on the bottom.
  • 02:31 So I will double click, and it landed over here.
  • 02:34 Now we move that to the top, I have little buttons over here, the up and the down.
  • 02:38 So I'm gonna move it up, up, up, up all the way to the top.
  • 02:41 Now, you can rearrange these buttons any way you would like.
  • 02:45 But it's just important to know that you have the ability to do that.
  • 02:48 Now before I'm done with this, I do wanna go ahead and
  • 02:51 hit the OK button right down here at the bottom.
  • 02:55 And that just added a second button right up here, the Save As button to my QAT.
  • 03:00 There's one other option we can do and that is to find buttons as you need
  • 03:04 them on within the ribbons, and add them on the fly.
  • 03:08 So right over here we have the Calibri, the font style.
  • 03:12 So if I right-click on the word Calibri I can't add it, but
  • 03:15 if I right-click on the drop down arrow, I do have the option to Add to Quick Access.
  • 03:19 Notice when I chose that now I have my font style in my Quick Access.
  • 03:23 So you are not stuck with the buttons that are base level on this drop down arrow.
  • 03:29 You're not stuck with those buttons.
  • 03:31 You can add them as you find them so
  • 03:33 this way you can customize the QAT to your personal settings.
  • 03:37 I do have a list included with the exercise file of my preferred buttons.
  • 03:43 But again, this is how you work in Microsoft Word, not how I work.
  • 03:47 So you can simply add any buttons you would like or
  • 03:50 go through the exercise file and add the buttons I recommend in there.

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