Add Your Most Used Commands to the Quick Action Toolbar

Do you waste time searching the Ribbon for commands you often use? Bring them front and center by using the Quick Action Toolbar. In Word for Windows, start by selecting File > Options > Quick Action Toolbar. (On a Mac, choose Word > Preferences > Ribbon & Toolbar, and choose the Quick Access Toolbar tab.) In the menu, select on the left a command that you want on the toolbar and click the Add button to add it to the toolbar. You may need to go to the Choose commands from… dropdown and select All Commands to find the one you want.

One advantage of the Quick Action Toolbar is that you can hide the Ribbon (in Windows, Ctrl-F1 toggles the Ribbon on and off; on a Mac, it’s Option-Cmd-R) and find commands with one click on the toolbar instead of opening the Ribbon and navigating among tabs.

I use the Quick Action Toolbar for Word’s Format Painter—the tool that copies the formatting of one paragraph so you can apply the same formatting to other paragraphs—and for much else, including a button that switches to full-screen instead of windowed mode. You can also add your own Word macros to the toolbar for instant access.

In Windows, you have the choice of placing the toolbar either above the ribbon, where it’s likely to look cramped and displays only icons, not the command names, or below the ribbon where an option lets you display both the command name and the icon of each command. This is especially useful for commands that don’t have easily recognizable icons, like the Calculator that I mention in tip 23.