In this chapter, we’ll cover some techniques to improve your productivity. The first one is the Quick Access Toolbar. When you first learned Excel, you probably learned how to navigate by using the ribbon:
For example, to create a scatter chart of the data, you would select the data, go to Insert > Scatter and choose a chart style.
To speed things up, you can add commands you use frequently to the Quick Access Toolbar. This is a great way to save time, especially if you’re performing repetitive operations.
We can add the scatter chart command to the Quick Access Toolbar by right-clicking on its button. Select Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
This will add the scatter chart icon to the menu above the ribbon:
The Quick Access Toolbar can save you time by becoming a repository for all of those commands that you find yourself navigating to over and over again.
In my personal Quick Access Toolbar, I have a few different commands:
Goal seek, found in Data > What-If Analysis
- Insert Equation, found in the Insert tab
- Name Manager, found in the Formula tab
You can change the order of the icons in the Quick Access Toolbar by clicking the arrow next to the toolbar and selecting More Commands:
You’ll see a list of all the commands in your Quick Access Toolbar on the right, and all of the available commands on the left:
From here you can reorder commands by selecting them and using the up or down arrow buttons, or remove them from the Quick Access Toolbar altogether.
Finally, if you prefer to have the Quick Access Toolbar closer to the working area of the spreadsheet, you can do that by clicking the down arrow next to the toolbar and choosing Show Below the Ribbon.
