THE QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR (Closeup)
When you begin your Excel training and get familiar with the new ribbon in the 2007 version, you’ll also want to learn how to use the new Quick Access Toolbar. This feature alone can save you many hours of time, as it helps you to place any tasks that you perform often, in one place. It’s similar to the toolbars in the previous versions and you can choose to place any function on it that exists in the program.
It is located either directly on top of the ribbon or under it, depending on where you decide you want to put it. You’ll see it on the top left. Point your mouse to it and you’ll see several of the icons that are there. On the right side of the icons, you’ll see a very small triangle that you can click and choose from a list the icons you would like to see appear on the toolbar. Some of the items listed are the New, Open, Save, Print Preview, Undo and Redo.
Watch one of the videos above or below for a good demonstration.
You can, however, add many other icons that are not listed above by customizing the Quick Access Toolbar. There are two ways to do this. One is to click on the Office Button on the top left and then the Excel Options button at the bottom. This will bring you to the Excel Options dialog box where you’ll click on the word “Customize” on the left side. This will bring you to the “Customize the Quick Access Toolbar” area. The other way is click on the small triangle to the right of the toolbar. It will open up a menu and then click on the words, “More Commands.” This will bring you directly to the Excel Options dialog box in the Customize section where you can add or remove items from the Quick Access Toolbar.
On the left pane, click the arrow on top where it says, “Popular Commands” and select “All Commands.” Then you can scroll down the list, which is in alphabetical order, and choose whatever functions in the program that you want to include on your Quick Access Toolbar. Just click on something such as “Hide Columns” for example, and click the word “Add” between the left and right panes and you’ll see Hide Columns appear in the list of icons on the right pane. You can adjust the order that you would like your list of icons to appear in by clicking on the up or down arrow located on the right side of the pane. You can also just choose individual Tab commands only such as the Home Tab or Insert Tab, etc, when you initially click on the arrow where it says, “Popular Commands.”
When you close the dialog box and go back to the main screen, you’ll see the icons you added included on the Quick Access Toolbar. If you want to change the placement of the Quick Access toolbar to be either above or below the ribbon, just click that small triangle on the right side to open the menu, and then click on, “Show Below the Ribbon” or “Show Above the Ribbon.” Overall, it’s very useful to setup your Quick Access toolbar with the functions that you perform regularly as this will make your life a lot easier as you won’t need to search as much for some functions all around the ribbon and its tabs.
WATCH ONE OF THE EXCEL TRAINING VIDEOS ABOVE OR BELOW
THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME VIDEO
(Full Screen or Closeup)
THE QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR (Full Screen)
