Using the Quick Access Toolbar in Excel

The video guide demonstrates how to add commands to the Quick Access toolbar. By default, the Quick Access toolbar contains shortcuts to save the current workbook, as well as undoing and redoing the previous action. All three functions can be accessed via keyboard shortcuts that are common across Microsoft Office products (CTRL + s/z/y respectively). Learning a keyboard shortcut that works on any machine will generally make more sense than adding items to the very top of the Excel window because you do not become reliant on your customizations and because it's quicker to make a selection on a keyboard than to move a cursor up and down a screen.

Our experts would recommend using the Quick Access toolbar for features you use regularly that are not immediately accessible. If you use Excel to prepare printed reports, you could add a shortcut to the Page Setup dialog box. The KeyTips shortcut is the unmemorable ALT->P->S->P and the function is hidden away on the Page Layout ribbon.

When you customize the Quick Access toolbar, you can select to customize the toolbar for a single workbook. This is generally not helpful for the universal Excel functions but can provide a helpful shortcut to an Excel macro stored within a workbook. The alternatives for triggering macros such as buttons or icons on a custom ribbon are not guaranteed to be visible all the time. The downside is that other users of the workbook would not automatically have access to your shortcuts  customizations can only help with your productivity and not other file users.