Making Favorite Access Commands Quickly Available

The commands you use to control Access are available from menus and toolbars within the program window. The basic command structure hasn't changed substantially from that in previous versions of Access: Buttons representing common commands are located on the Standard and Advanced toolbars, and other commands that you probably use less frequently can be found on the File, Edit, View, Go, Tools, Actions, and Help menus. You can also invoke many commands by using keyboard shortcuts.

Tip

To see a list of the available keyboard shortcuts, click the Microsoft Office Access Help button, type keyboard shortcuts in the Search box, and press Enter. Then click the Keyboard Shortcuts For Access topic.

As we first discussed in "Introducing Microsoft Office Access 2007" at the beginning of this book, big changes have been made to the way commands are presented within the Access object windows (tables, forms, reports, and so on). Buttons representing commonly used commands are grouped on tabs to make them easily accessible in the specific context in which you're working. This new design makes most of the commands you need at any given time available with only one click. However, you might find that the buttons you use most frequently are scattered on different tabs, or that certain commands you used in previous versions of Access are not available from the Ribbon. To give you more control over the way you work in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Microsoft has provided the Quick Access Toolbar, the Office equivalent of the Quick Launch bar available in Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista. The Quick Access Toolbar is located to the right of the Microsoft Office Button in Access object windows, as well as in the Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 program windows, and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 item windows. You can add a button for any command to the Quick Access Toolbar so that it is always available no matter which tab is currently active.

In this exercise, you will add a button to the Quick Access Toolbar. There are no practice files for this exercise.

BE SURE TO start Access before beginning this exercise.

OPEN any recent database file.

1.	At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button. Customize Quick Access Toolbar The Customize Quick Access Toolbar menu opens, displaying a short list of common commands that you can click to add to the toolbar.
2.	Near the bottom of the menu, click More Commands. The Access Options window opens, displaying the Customize The Quick Access Toolbar page. The commands currently appearing on the Quick Access Toolbar are listed (in order of appearance) in the right pane.
3.	Click the Choose commands from arrow, and then in the list, click Create Tab. The list displays all the commands available from the Create tab. Tip You can display an alphabetical list of all Access commands by clicking All Commands in the Choose Commands From list. In some cases, multiple instances of a command appear in the listthese correspond to the locations in which the command appears within the program. Pointing to a command displays the command location in a ScreenTip. Commands that appear on contextual tabs and commands that don't appear on any tab are also available from this list.
4.	In the Create Tab list, point to the first command, Advanced. A ScreenTip displays the tab and group where you can locate this command. Point to a few other commands to view their ScreenTips and gain a better understanding of how commands are grouped and where you can find them.
5.	In the Create Tab list, click Table. Then between the two command lists, click Add. Access adds the Table command to the end of the list of commands available from the Quick Access Toolbar.
6.	In the right pane, click Table, and then click the Move Up button two times to move the selected command to the second position in the list. Move Up
7.	At the bottom of the Customize page, click OK. The Table command button now appears on the Quick Access Toolbar so that you can conveniently create a new table from anywhere in Access. You can remove the button from the Quick Access Toolbar by repeating Steps 1 and 2, selecting the command in the right pane, and then clicking Remove and OK. Tip You can add any command to the end of the Quick Access Toolbar by right-clicking the command on the Ribbon, and then clicking Add To Quick Access Toolbar. Similarly, you can delete any command from the Quick Access Toolbar by right-clicking the command on the toolbar, and clicking Remove From Quick Access Toolbar.

BE SURE TO remove the command from the Quick Access Toolbar if you don't want to keep it there.