[TSG] Gurus Take Advantage Of Their QAT

Excel Education for the REAL WORLD!

I hope your day has been fantastic so far!

If you are looking to improve your productivity in Microsoft Excel, you're going to like today's tip. That's because I'm going to be introducing you to a great feature that can help you achieve just that: the Quick Access Toolbar.

The Quick Access Toolbar (aka QAT) is a customizable toolbar located at the top of the Excel window. By default, the toolbar is typically populated with the "Save," "Undo," and "Redo" buttons.

This toolbar allows you to add frequently used commands and functions, making them easily accessible with just one click or with keyboard shortcuts. You can add commands such as "Email As Attachment", "Filter", "Paste Values Only", and many more, based on your personal preferences.

You can choose to leave your QAT located at the top of your Excel window or choose to move it below the Ribbon by right-clicking and choosing the desired option. I personally have grown fond of relocating my QAT below the Ribbon as it's faster to navigate to with my mouse.

To modify your QAT, you will need to navigate to the Customize Toolbar dialog. You can get there in a few different ways:

• File >> Excel Options
• Right-Click QAT and select Customized Quick Access Toolbar
• Click the grey down arrow at the end of the QAT and select Customize

Once you've opened the dialog, you can navigate to the buttons you wish to add in the left-hand listbox. After you select one, you can send them over to your QAT by using the Add >> button (making the buttons appear in the right-hand listbox).

You can also use the up/down arrows to manage the order your buttons will appear in the Quick Access Toolbar.

What's more, the Quick Access Toolbar can also be accessed using keyboard shortcuts. By default, the first nine commands on the Quick Access Toolbar are assigned a number from 1 to 9. You can use the "Alt" key in combination with the corresponding number key to activate the command without using the mouse.

This effectively allows you to create keyboard shortcuts for Excel functionalities that either do not have a shortcut assigned or functions with really complex shortcut key combinations.

I recommend reserving the first 4 positions on the QAT for the buttons you intend to call with your keyboard. Alt + 1-4 are going to be the easiest to key with your left hand. The other number combinations can get a bit awkward to use.

Personally, my first buttons in the QAT have always been:

1. Values [Paste Values]
2. Formatting [Paste Formatting]
3. Formulas [Paste Formulas]
4. Group Objects

Another awesome ability that the QAT has is you can create buttons for your macros. Simply adjust your filter in the Customize Toolbar dialog box to Macros.

You can then proceed to create buttons from a list of available macros.

Once you've added a button to call one of your macros, you can customize the look of the button. Simply select the button's current label and click the Modify option.

This will open up the Modify Button dialog box. Within this dialog box, you can pick a different icon and rename the button.

One feature I didn't realize existed for the longest time is you can right-click on any button in your Excel Ribbon and quickly add that button to your QAT. You can even do this with your Excel add-in buttons as well.

The below image shows how I can easily add the Tickmark Add-in's Comment button by right-clicking on it and selecting Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

I've noticed recently that Microsoft Office updates are resetting the QAT, effectively wiping out all your customizations. To protect against this, you can export your QAT setup to a ".exportedUI" file. This option is within Excel Options >> Customize Toolbar.

If your QAT happens to get reset in the future, you can easily import the ".exportedUI" file to re-establish your preferred QAT setup.

In summary, the Quick Access Toolbar is a powerful tool that can help you work more efficiently in Microsoft Excel. And the crazy thing is, most Excel users never use it outside of using Save/Undo (which there are easy keyboard shortcuts for anyways).

By adding your most frequently used commands and functions to the toolbar, you can access them quickly and easily, and even call keyboard shortcuts for faster access.

I hope this information has been helpful to you, and I encourage you to give the Quick Access Toolbar a try.

I've written A LOT about Excel over the years. Here are a few articles that might teach you something new today!

• How To Create Excel Progress Bar Charts (Professional-Looking!)
• Excel QAT Setups From Some Of The Excel Community's Finest
• Find And Break All External Links In Excel File [Guide]
• Populate A PowerPoint Quiz From Excel With VBA

Over the years I've solved issues throughout my career by building my own Excel Add-in solutions.

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Hopefully, this newsletter brought you some value today. I absolutely love sharing the tips I've come across or developed over the years and also receiving feedback from everyone.

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Tomorrow will be the last email in this onboarding series of tips. I'll be sharing with you my thoughts on spreadsheet branding and how it can easily set you up for success in your career.

See you tomorrow!

Chris
Founder, TheSpreadsheetGuru.com