How to customize Quick Access Toolbar in MS Excel

Microsoft Excel has different parts. The Ribbon, Office Button, Quick Access Toolbar, Menu Group, Formula Bar, Address Bar, Status Bar, Headers, Vertical Scroll Bar, Horizontal Scroll Bar and so on.

Each part of excel has its own importance. Let me discuss one of the Important part of Excel, that is Quick Access Toolbar.

And also, we will see what are the new options in Excel 2013 relates to the quick Access Toolbar

What is Quick Access Toolbar

Quick Access Toolbar is an independent toolbar, which is allowing user to add his favorite commands/controls for quick access.

Quick Access Toolbar is exactly like Tool Box.

Let say, I frequently use Comma style, Pivot Tables, Define Name, Data Validation options in Excel. But each of these options are in different Ribbon tabs. So, to quickly access these options I put all these options in Quick Access Toolbar.

We can feature Quick Access Toolbar either above the Ribbon or below the Ribbon, that is purely based on our convenient. But, the default location of Quick Access Toolbar is the upper left corner, next to the Office Button (above the Ribbon). (In Excel 2013 version - default position is the upper left corner above the Ribbon)

How to Move Quick Access toolbar from one location to the another location?

1. Right Click on the Quick Access Toolbar or any option in the Ribbon.
2. Select Show Quick Access Toolbar above the Ribbon / Show Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon

How to add favorite commands to Quick Access Toolbar?

1. Right Click on the Quick Access Toolbar or any option in the Ribbon and Select Customize Quick Access Toolbar
• Click Office Button, Select Excel Options and Select Customize (in Excel 2007)
• Click Office Button, Select Options and Select Quick Access Toolbar (in Excel 2010)
• Select File from Ribbon, Click Options and Select Quick Access Toolbar (in Excel 2013)
2. Select All Commands under Choose commands from drop down
3. Then we can find all the options in MS Excel
4. Select any of the favorite option
5. Click Add
6. Like that, we can add all the required controls
7. Click OK

Then we can able to find those options in Quick Access Toolbar

Once we Click Reset, Excel delete all customizations and reset default settings for Quick Access Toolbar.

Keyboard Shortcuts to Quick Access Toolbar controls

The other bigger advantage of the Quick Access Toolbar is that each control in Quick Access Toolbar has allotted one unique shortcut.

It is not very difficulty to remember these shortcuts.

The shortcuts order is Alt and 1, Alt and 2, Alt and 3, Alt and 4 ..... Alt and 09, Alt and 08, Alt and 07 ...... Alt and 0A, Alt and 0B, Alt and 0C .....

(Note: Alt and 1 means Click Alt and release, then click 1)

Let say, I have added 4 controls to Quick Access Toolbar 1) Save 2) Undo 3) Redo 4) Comma Style.

Then the short cuts allotted to these four controls are Alt and 1, Alt and 2, Alt and 3, Alt and 4 respectively.

What are the new options for Quick Access Toolbar in MS Excel 2013

Reset All Customizations

• Reset Only Quick Access Toolbar - Excel delete all the customizations and reset default settings for Quick Access Toolbar. (this option same as Excel version 2007 and Excel version 2010)

• Reset All custiomizations - Excel delete all customizations from Quick Access Toolbar as well as in Ribbon Tabs and reset default settings 

Export or Import Customizations

• Export All Customizations - We can export current Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar customizations into a file that can be used and imported into the other computer

• Import Customization file - Import any exported Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar customizations to include in the desired Excel file