Toolbar on Excel | Step by Step Guide to Customize & Use Toolbar in Excel

Toolbar or we can say it as quick access toolbar available in excel on the left topmost side of the excel window, by default it has only a few options such as save, redo and undo but we can customize the toolbar as per our choice and insert any option or button in the toolbar which will help us to reach the commands to use quickly than before.

Excel Toolbar

Excel toolbar (also called Quick Access Toolbar) is presented to get access to various commands to perform the operations. It is presented with an option to add or delete commands to it to quickly access them.

Quick access toolbar is universal and access is possible on any tab like Home, Insert, Review, and References, etc. It is independent of the tab that we are working simultaneously.
It contains the various options used frequently to enhance the speed of working in excel sheets.
Along with the quick access toolbar, there is another toolbar such as Formula Bar, Gridlines, and Headings under the show or hide a group of ‘View’ tab. simply selecting and deselecting the checkmark shows or hides this toolbar.
Format toolbar, drawing toolbar, chart toolbar, and standard toolbar presented in the earlier version of Excel 2003 are modified into the Home tab and Insert tab in the later versions of Excel 2007 and more.
Customize option is there to have access to the full list of toolbars.

How to Use the toolbar in Excel?

The toolbar on excel is used for various purposes. There are few major activities performed on the quick access toolbar on different versions of Excel.
In 2007 version, only three activities including adding of extra features or commands that are used frequently, shifting the location of the toolbar, and deleting a feature from the toolbar are possible whenever we don’t want.
In higher versions than 2007, quick access toolbar is used in many ways along with adding and removing of commands. Those include adding commands which are not presented on the toolbar, modifying commands order, moving toolbar below or above the ribbon, grouping two or more commands, exporting and importing of the toolbar, customizing utilizing the options command, and resetting the default settings.
The frequently used commands like save, open, redo, new, undo, email, print preview, and quick print are easily added to the toolbar.
The commands that are not listed in the toolbar can be selected from the three categories including popular commands, all commands, and commands not listed on the ribbon.

Examples to Understand Quick Access Excel Toolbar

Below are the examples of excel toolbar.

1 – Adding Features to the Toolbar

Adding features or commands to the quick access toolbars is very. This is done in three ways including adding of commands that located on the ribbon, adding features through ‘more commands’ option, and adding the features presented on the different tabs directly to the toolbar.

Method 1

We can add new, open, save, email, redo, and quick print features to the toolbar. For that select customize quick access toolbar button and click on the command you want to add on the toolbar.

In the above figure, we can see the tick-marked option present at the toolbar.

Method 2

In this, a user needs to select customize quick access toolbar in excel and select ‘more commands’ option to add the commands.

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As shown in the below figure of the customize window, the user has to select the commands and click on add option to add the feature to the toolbar. Added features are displayed on the excel ribbon for accessing easily.

Method 3

The user has to just right click on the feature presented on the ribbon and choose to add to quick access toolbar.

As shown in the figure, center and right align commands are added to the toolbar utilizing this option.

#2 – Deleting Features from the Toolbar

To remove commands,

Go to more commands.

Select the command that wants to be removed under the customize quick access toolbar option

Then click on the remove button to remove the selected command.

It is also done by selecting excel options by clicking on the Microsoft office button presented on the top left corner of the window and then going to customize tab.

#3 – Moving the Toolbar on the Ribbon

If a user wants to shift the toolbar to another location, it simply done in few steps. The toolbar can be presented below or above the ribbon.

To present the toolbar below the ribbon,

Click on customize the quick access toolbar button

Select the options shown below the ribbon

#4 – Modifying the Sequence of Commands and Resetting to Default Settings.

Up and down button present on the customize toolbar are used to present the option in the order as per user. A user can discard the changes by clicking on the reset option to get the default settings.

#5 – Customize Excel Toolbar

Customization of the excel toolbar is done to add, remove, reset, changing the location of the toolbar, modifying, and altering the order of the features at a time.

Using the customization option, all operations are performed in a short time on the toolbar

#6 – Exporting and Importing of Quick Access Toolbar

Exporting and importing feature presented in the latest versions of Excel to have same settings for files used by another computer. To do this,

Go to File and select the Options.

Then go to quick access toolbar.

Choose the Import/Export option to export the customized settings

Use the same steps to import customization.

Things to Remember

Quick Access Toolbar doesn’t have a feature of displaying in multiple lines
It is hard to enhance the size of the buttons correspond to the commands. It is done only by changing the resolution of the screen.
Another way to add commands to the toolbar is that right-clicking on ribbon facilitates the option
Contents of several commands such as styles, indent, and spacing are not added to the toolbar but they are represented in the form of buttons.
Keyboard shortcuts are also applied to the commands presented on the toolbar. Pressing ALT key displays the shortcut numbers to utilize the commands more effectively by reducing the time.