I have my Word QAT positioned below the ribbon so I don’t have to move the mouse quite as far – another productivity saving if you’re a heavy mouse user. Note: Your QAT in Excel is different from your QAT in Word, so changing your settings in one application won’t affect the other. Here’s the default QAT in Excel 2007 – notice that it sits above the ribbon and has just three icons – save, undo, and redo (only available after you’ve undone something):Īnd here’s my customized QAT in Word – yes, it’s big! (click on it to see it full size): So what is the QAT? It’s that skinny toolbar that sits above your ribbon in Word and other Office applications.

(Of course, keyboard shortcuts are even more productive, but not every function has a keyboard command associated with it, though you can add one – see the list of resources at the end of this tip.) By adding your own icons to the QAT, you don’t have to go hunting for features you use regularly. Some people use it a lot, but I suspect that many don’t even realize it’s there or that it can be customized to suit the way you work. Microsoft must have realised that this ribbon ‘hunt and peck’ process was unproductive because they implemented something called the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT). Even with all the functions of the ribbon, it’s still hard to remember where a feature lives, or it’s time-consuming (and thus unproductive) to go hunting for a feature you use regularly by switching to a different tab on the ribbon, finding the icon, switching to another tab, hunting for another icon etc., or clicking through several dialog boxes just to turn a check box on or off. One of the things that happened when Microsoft Office 2007 applications, such as Word, changed to the ‘ribbon’ interface was that users couldn’t easily find the things they knew well in earlier versions of Office. Based on a Writing Tip I wrote for my work colleagues…īottom Line: Spend a few minutes setting up your Quick Access Toolbar to save time in the long run

Microsoft word show toolbar