Quick Access Toolbar - Office 2007 - NVDA

Customising the Quick Access Toolbar in Office 2007

For those of you still using Office 2007, the Quick Access Toolbar (or "QAT") has the dubious distinction of being the only customisable part of the Office 2007 ribbon interface. It really wasn't until Office 2010 that more options, principally the extensive ribbon customisation, became a welcome reality. The QAT then is a vitally important piece of making your Office 2007 experience a more positive one, allowing you to find features in MS Word and Excel in a less tedious fashion.

In this post I'm going to revisit the QAT, specifically from an Office 2007 perspective. I'll be covering what it is, how you navigate it and, most importantly, how you can make it work for you.

What is The Quick Access Toolbar?

Back in earlier versions of Office the main interface comprised of a Menu Bar (File, Edit, View etc) with a variable number of Toolbars (Standard, Formatting, Drawing etc). All of these areas were pretty configurable, you could even create your own empty toolbar and fill it with whatever features and functions you required. Those days are seemingly dim and distant but the Quick Access Toolbar has singlehandedly carried such once cherished traditions on and into the "ribbonised" versions of Office 2007 and above. Essentially, the QAT is a new take on that old style of custom toolbar.

What can I use the QAT for?

I advise new learners to use the QAT to store the following:

• Functions/features located across different tabs that you tend to forget or just find too tedious to navigate to manually.
• Functions/features that do not have easy or memorable direct keystrokes.
• Functions/features such as your own macros or other options and settings not displayed within the default tab structure.

How do I navigate to the QAT?

By default in Office 2007, the QAT is located directly above the Home tab and to the right of the infamous Office button. Physically, it is a small horizontal toolbar row that occupies the same line as the Title Bar of the active window. Using basic keystrokes you can focus on the QAT quite easily:

1. Tap the ALT key to move to the Upper Ribbon area.
2. Ensure that you have focus on the Home ribbon tab and use the keystroke of SHIFT TAB. (You can also press UP ARROW but the advantage of using SHIFT TAB is that it grounds your focus on the same item, in the same location, every time. This customise menu button option is located at the right hand edge of the QAT - note that regardless of how many items you add to the QAT, nothing will ever be placed to the right of this. If you do ARROW RIGHT away from this menu button then focus will skip off the edge of the QAT.
3. From this Customise menu button, move back along the already present icons in the QAT using the LEFT ARROW. In Office 2007, if you ARROW LEFT and hear the Office button option then you have skipped off the left edge of the QAT. If this happens, tap the RIGHT ARROW to move back to the Home ribbon tab then use SHIFT TAB again to refocus on the Customise Toolbar button.
4. To activate any of the command icons in the QAT, focus on the appropriate command button and press SPACEBAR to activate it.

By default, if you haven't already explored and experimented in this area, the QAT will probably have a bunch of basic commands in it, for example: Save, Undo and Redo. But remember what I said earlier about not taking up slots in the QAT for things that are pretty basic and have direct keystrokes anyway? Well, the default functions there are a great example of this! What is the point of taking up room in the QAT when each of those features already has a direct keystroke? With this in mind, our first job then is to tailor your toolbar to make it more meaningful for you.

Removing Commands in the QAT Directly

The quick access toolbar is all about being able to do Office 2007 stuff quickly, once it is set up properly of course. Thankfully, removing unwanted features in the QAT is very simple:

1. Move to the quick access toolbar via the upper ribbon.
2. Focus on the particular command icon in the toolbar you wish to remove.
3. Call up the context menu for the command in focus with the APPLICATIONS MENU key or SHIFT F10 - if you're a bit more old school like me LOL.
4. In the small context menu, choose the Remove From Quick Access Toolbar option and confirm with ENTER.
5. The focused command will now be removed (permanently I might add) from the currently displayed quick access toolbar. Focus will then return to your active document.

Note that this isn't the only way to remove commands that appear in the QAT, you can also do some wholesale spring-cleaning from the Customise dialog box and we'll be looking at this area a bit later but first, now that we have removed commands directly let's cover adding them.

Adding a Command to the QAT Directly

This context menu approach outlined in the previous walkthrough can also be used to add commands to the QAT. This is how it is done:

1. Press the ALT key to move to the upper ribbon.
2. Use the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys as necessary to locate the relevant tab. Press the DOWN ARROW to move to the associated lower ribbon.
3. Use the TAB key to manually move through the groups of commands in the lower ribbon and locate the feature or function you require.
4. Call up the context or application menu for the command using the APPLICATIONS MENU key or SHIFT F10.
5. In the context menu, choose the first option: Add to Quick Access Toolbar. Press the ENTER key to confirm the operation.
6. Focus will return to your current document and the command you specified will now have a shortcut in your quick access toolbar.

The great thing about the above two approaches for adding and removing options is that it allows you to manage your quick access toolbar while avoiding the greater complexity of the main Customise the QAT dialog box. However, to have greater choice and control control over what is displayed, this is the place to go. So, let's head over there and see what the deal is!

Launching the Main Customise Dialog Box

There are two ways to launch the Customise the QAT dialog box, I'll go through them both:

Route 1:

1. Press ALT to go to the upper ribbon.
2. Press SHIFT TAB to go to the Customise menu button. Press the SPACEBAR to activate the menu.
3. Press the UP ARROW to move to the More Commands... option and press ENTER to confirm. (Note: On your way towards the More Commands... option you'll pass many of the basic functions you can choose from in this menu. Basic options are included such as Save, New and Open - but we really don't want any of them as they can all be triggered by direct keystrokes such as CONTROL S for Save and CONTROL Z for Undo and so on.)
4. Focus will move to the main Customise the QAT dialog box and you will be in a list of categories. Initially, if this dialog box is completely new to you, I always suggest using the TAB key to move around all of the options to get a feel for what is available.

Route 2:

5. Press ALT to go to the upper ribbon.
6. Open the context menu with the APPLICATIONS KEY or SHIFT F10 and select the Customise the Quick Access Toolbar... option. Press ENTER to confirm. Note: I should mention here that if you are taking Route 2 in Office 2010 or above then you will also find the customise the ribbon options in this context menu too. So, you have the options for customising the QAT and the ribbon itself - that's what makes Office 2010 a bit funkier.

Whatever method you use to launch the main customise dialog box, when focus moves there make sure you use the TAB key to explore all of the options.

Using the Customise the QAT Dialog Box

While the main dialog box seems pretty daunting at first, if you keep circling around it it should start to make some sense - let's run through the main options that we're concerned with here. (By the way, I'm using NVDA at this point so how I describe the controls in this dialog box is heavily influenced by my screenreader feedback. Anyway, the main options to pay attention to are:

• Choose Commands From combo box: Normally this is set to Popular Commands by default, what you set in this combo determines the content displayed in the command listbox you'll be tabbing to next.
• Unlabelled list box: If the commands combo box is set to popular commands then you should find the top item in the list (Separator) is spoken. This list - the first of two in this dialog box - contains all of the options determined by the category chosen in the previous Choose Commands combo box. In other words, you choose the commands in this list before you "add" them to your QAT.
• Add and Remove buttons: These button controls have been assigned the direct keystrokes of ALT A and ALT R. Use these buttons to confirm the adding of a highlighted command in the first list or the removal of a command in the second QAT list.
• Customise Quick Access Toolbar combo box: This control determines whether you are making changes to the Quick Access Toolbar on a global or individual document basis. Generally, unless you have a specific need to, the default of "For All Documents" is fine - which means that any changes you make in the QAT will always be available and not just when you are in a specific document.
• Quick Access Toolbar list: The second of the two main lists in this dialog box, this one shows, in order, the commands you already have in your QAT. When you add a command from the first list it will appear in this second list. The list is arranged so that the command at the top of this list will be the leftmost command in the toolbar itself. The command at the bottom of this second list will be the one on the extreme right edge of the QAT.
• Move Down and Move Up buttons: These options give you the flexibility to move items in the second list up or down. By doing this, each command is moved left and right in the QAT.
• Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon checkbox: Toggle this checkbox on and off with the SPACEBAR. By default the QAT is situated above the Upper Ribbon - which is why you are pressing ALT then using SHIFT TAB. You can set the ribbon to appear beneath the ribbon although, if you are using the keyboard it can be a bit of a faff to navigate there. I tend to advise that if you are a keyboard user keep the QAT above the ribbon (it's easier to navigate to) although if you are a magnification and mouse user you might want to set the QAT location beneath the ribbon. The latter is because, being set closer to the document working area, it's quicker to get there using the mouse.

Now that you have a bit more of an idea on some of the main options, let's run through an example of adding and removing a few commands. In this example, I'm going to add a couple of table-related commands then remove some of the basic things still in my QAT such as Save and Undo. Both of these functions have been sitting in my toolbar for too long doing diddly squat - okay, let's roll:

1. Navigate to the Customise the Quick Access Toolbar dialog box using whatever method you find most convenient.
2. Press TAB to move to the Choose Commands combo box and set it to All Commands, confirm with the ENTER key. TAB to the main command list which will now show all of the commands in MS Word - yes, it's a big list.
3. In the unlabelled list of commands, use first letter navigation to move to the options beginning with "I" and then press DOWN ARROW (or continue to tap the "I" key) to move to an option labelled Insert Table. Problem is: there's two of them with the same name! The one I want here is the second one, located just above the option called Insert Table of Authorities.
4. With the correct Insert Table option in the list highlighted, TAB to the Add button and press the SPACEBAR. Doing this now adds the highlighted "Insert Table..." command to the Quick Access Toolbar list.
5. SHIFT TAB back to the command list and this time we're going to add the convert table to text command. So, as before, tap the letter "C" to move through the commands beginning with that letter.
6. With the correct Convert Table to Textoption highlighted, TAB to the Add button and press SPACEBAR to confirm as before.
7. At this point it's good form to check the QAT list out and maybe reorder some of the commands in there and also remove any that don't serve a purpose any longer. With this in mind, press TAB until you have focus in the second QAT list.
8. Use your UP and DOWN ARROW keys to check out the commands in the QAT list. I've noticed a couple of commands (in my case, Save and Undo) that I want to get rid of. So, highlight the relevant command in the QAT list, then either SHIFT TAB back to the Remove button and press SPACEBAR or use the hotkey ALT R to remove the command directly.
9. After some trimming the QAT now only contains my new table commands, which is great. If I want I can now re-order my list by highlighting the command I want to move then pressing the TAB key to go to the Move Up or Move Down buttons. With focus on either of those I can press the SPACEBAR to move the highlighted command up or down as necessary. In this case though I'm pretty happy with things as they are - I don't have stacks of commands in there to make reordering everything necessary.
10. When all the adjustments are finished, TAB to the OK button and press the SPACEBAR. Your new customised Quick Access Toolbar is good to go!

Activating the Commands in the QAT

There are two ways to approach using commands in the QAT, you can:

• Navigate to the Quick Access Toolbar and move through the commands with the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys. Use the SPACEBAR to activate the command in focus.

Or...

• Use the magic keystrokes - did you know that every command you put in the QAT is assigned a direct keystroke? The first command in the toolbar is set to ALT 1, the second command is set to ALT 2 and the third is ALT 3 and so on. Intriguingly, the keystroke for the 19th command in the QAT is ALT 0A (press ALT then tap 0 then A) the twentieth is the equally obscure but still handy ALT 0 B and so on. Yes, I know, a bit weird if you plan on having loads of stuff in your QAT but... they work so - thank you Microsoft LOL

Summary

Okay, I hope that this post has given you the incentive to explore this whole quick access toolbar area, regardless of whatever Officer version you are rocking. When you get your QAT set up properly, especially in Office 2007 where you can't customise the ribbon, there's the potential to save a bucketload of time. Now then... what to add to the QAT...any ideas...?

Have fun!

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