Today’s topic is the quick access toolbar.
I’ll start off by apologizing to Mac users because this post is mostly not for you. Your version of Excel doesn’t have a quick access toolbar. Sorry. You can customize your toolbars (from the menu bar click on View then Toolbars then Customize toolbars and menus), but it’s not quite as awesome as the quick access toolbar.
For everyone else, remember when I got up on my soap box and lectured you about how using keyboard shortcuts is faster and more precise? I know some of you thought in your head, “But Doooooug, what about those stupid long shortcut sequences like paste special formats (Alt→H→V→S→T)!?!? That is 5 keystrokes long!” And I would say you’re right about that, that one kind of sucks.
Enter the quick access toolbar.
As its name implies, this feature gives you quick access to its “tools.” Tools in this case are features or commands in Excel. The great thing is that you can decide which “tools” to put there. Once you populate the quick access toolbar with your favorite Excel features, those features are automatically assigned super simple keyboard shortcuts. Observe:
Above is a screen shot of my quick access toolbar. I have placed 9 functions that I CONSTANTLY use into the toolbar. Here is what it looks like after I hit the “Alt” key:
Notice the numbers that have popped up. If I hit one of those numbers, Excel will execute the function corresponding to that number. For example, if I want to place a thick black border around some data I hit “Alt + 8”. (The regular shortcut is Alt→H→B→T).
If you would like to customize your own quick access toolbar, check it:
1) Click the “File” button then from there click “Options.” Alternatively you could hit Alt→F→T.
2) The Excel options box should pop-up and from the left sidebar click “Quick Access Toolbar”
3) Now you can add or delete items from your quick access toolbar as well as change the order they appear.
4) Notice the dropdown labeled “Choose commands from.” This defaults to the popular commands, so if you don’t see the command you’re looking for change this dropdown box.
Everyone might have slightly different Excel needs but I would HIGHLY recommend placing “Paste Special” and “Format” into your quick access toolbar. Also don’t forget to customize your quick access toolbar in Word and PowerPoint.
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: Check out the first paragraph of the post which points out that the Quick Access toolbar is not available for Macs, but provides a alternative solution. Best of luck!
I have excell 2011 mac. It does not have a “file” tab. Can you tell me where it went in the excell 2011 mac version? Also do you have any tutorials for that version. I’m just learning the program, and it’s hard to find instructions.
Hi – I’m hoping you can help me. I bought a little laptop last year and it has on it Excel Starter 2010. I haven’t really needed it until now but now that I am using it it has this REALLY annoying box thing on the side. It has “Get Started” and “Help and Support” and ads on the bottom. It does not have a little cross or any feasible way that I can work out to turn it off! It’s taking up so much of my little screen everytime I work on a spreadsheet I have to scroll back-forth etc or make the screen small ( to see all the info. I’ve clicked help and googled this problem and can’t seem to find any way to switch it off. Can it be done? Thanks!!!