The Quick Access Toolbar or QAT is the only toolbar available in PowerPoint. This toolbar can be
customized so that it contains your most-used commands, accessible to you with just a single click. We already explored how you can
change the location of the QAT in our Quick Access
Toolbar in PowerPoint 2016 tutorial.
There are two ways in which you can add your favorite commands to the QAT. The easier way is to right-click any button on the
Ribbon tabs, and choose the Add to Quick Access Toolbar
option, as shown highlighted in red with Figure 1.
Figure 1: Add any command to the QAT with a right-click
Alternatively, follow these steps to customize the QAT in PowerPoint 2016 by adding your
frequently used commands. This process is longer, but shows you all commands available in PowerPoint, including some that are not available on
Ribbon tabs:
- Choose the File menu to bring up
Backstage view, as shown in Figure 2. Now,
select Options (highlighted in blue within Figure 2).
Figure 2: Options within File menu- Alternatively, just right-click anywhere over your QAT or Ribbon and from the resultant
menu, select the Customize Quick Access Toolbar option, as shown in Figure 1, earlier on this page.
- Either way, this opens the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 3. Make sure you choose
the Quick Access Toolbar option within the sidebar. This shows the relevant options on the right side of the
PowerPoint Options dialog box (see Figure 3 again).
Figure 3: PowerPoint Options dialog box
- All the options for customizing the QAT are explained below, as marked in Figure 3, above:
A. Choose commands from
- Here you will select the commands which you want to add to the QAT. Click to open the drop-down list and
choose the category of commands that you want to work with. This will display a list of commands within that category in the section below. From
this section, select the particular command which you want to add to QAT.
B. Customize Quick Access Toolbar
- Here you will choose whether you want to customize the QAT for all documents, or only for the current presentation. As you
can see in Figure 3, For all documents is the default option selected. Existing commands already added to the QAT
will be displayed in the section below.
C. Add and Remove buttons
- These buttons are used to add commands from the Choose commands from (see point A above)
list, or remove commands from the Customize Quick Access Toolbar (see point B above) list.
D. Arrange Commands
- These arrow buttons allow you to reorder the sequence of icons visible on the QAT.
E. Reset
- Sets your QAT to its defaults, and removes all customizations made. We explain this more in our
Reset, Import, and Export QAT Customizations
tutorial.
F. Import / Export
- Lets you export and import your customizations, learn more in our
Reset, Import, and Export QAT Customizations
tutorial.
- Add the commands you use often - for this tutorial we have added Copy, Open, and
Paste commands within the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, as shown highlighted in
red within Figure 4.
Figure 4: Commands added to the QAT- Note that you can also change the order in which these commands show in the QAT. To reorder, select a command that you want to change
the order for. Then click either the Up or Down buttons, highlighted in blue within
Figure 4, above. Once done adding, editing, reordering, or removing the commands, click the OK button to get back
to the PowerPoint interface. You'll see the new or updated
commands available on the QAT, as shown in Figure 5, below.
Figure 5: New commands added to the QAT
- Tip: Each command you add to the QAT has its own keyboard shortcut. To view these shortcuts, just press the Alt key
and each QAT command will show an overlaid tool tip with a number, as shown in Figure 6, below. If the number reads
6, then the keyboard shortcut for that command is Alt+6. Similarly, if the number reads 9, then
the keyboard shortcut for that command is Alt+9. You'll need to be quick with pressing your keys if you have a double digit shortcut
key!
Figure 6: QAT shortcuts shown in tool tip
Tip: If you want to relocate the QAT under the Ribbon tabs, just right-click anywhere over the
QAT and select the Show Quick Access Toolbars below the Ribbon option (refer to Figure 1, shown earlier on this
page).
