Customize the Quick Access Toolbar in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

The Quick Access Toolbar, or QAT is the only toolbar available for customization in PowerPoint. Within the QAT, you can place your most used commands so that they are accessible to you with just a single click. We already explored how you can change the location of the QAT and other tricks in our Quick Access Toolbar in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial. In this tutorial, we will explore how you can further customize the QAT in PowerPoint 2010. Follow these steps to learn more:

1. Choose the File menu to bring up Backstage view. Now, select Options as shown in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Options within File menu
3. Alternatively, the easier way is to right-click anywhere on the QAT or the Ribbon, and choose the Customize Quick Access Toolbar option, as shown in Figure 2.
4. 
   Figure 2: Customize Quick Access Toolbar option within the right-click contextual menu
2. 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 (refer to Figure 3 again).
3. 
   Figure 3: PowerPoint Options dialog box
4. The Quick Access Toolbar options are explained below, as marked in Figure 3, above:

A. Choose commands from

5. Here you will find list of all the commands which can be added in QAT. Click on the drop down list to choose the category of commands that you want to work with.

B. Customize Quick Access Toolbar

6. Here you can see the commands already added to the QAT. All new commands that you add to the QAT show up here.

C. Add and Remove buttons

7. These buttons are used to add commands from the Choose commands from (see A above) list, or remove commands from the Customize Quick Access Toolbar (see B above) list.

D. Arrange Commands

8. These arrow buttons allow you to reorder the sequence of icons visible in the QAT.
3. Add the commands you use often. Figure 4 shows the Combine Shapes, Copy, and Cut commands added to the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list.
4. 
   Figure 4: Commands added
5. Click the OK button when you are done adding, editing, or removing the commands to get back to the PowerPoint interface.
4. Figure 5 shows three new commands added to the QAT.
5. 
   Figure 5: Customized 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 highlighted in red within Figure 6, below. If the number reads 6, then the keyboard shortcut for that command is Alt+6. Similarly if the number reads 09, then the keyboard shortcut for that command is Alt+09. 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