Making a Longer Quick Access Toolbar

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 14, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, and 2013


5

Nancy wonders if there is a way to have a two-line Quick Access Toolbar. Unfortunately, the answer is an emphatic "no." Microsoft makes it very clear that you cannot have multiple rows in the QAT. In fact, there is a limit to the number of tools you can add to the QAT—currently about 20 commands.

If you are using Word 2010 or Word 2013, though, you can customize the ribbon tabs (add your own ribbon tab) so that you can add commands there. (Display the File tab of the ribbon, click Options, then click Customize Ribbon.) That way you can add many more commands than what you can make available through the QAT.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5844) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, and 2013.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 2 + 2?

2015-11-16 16:30:38

Paul Franklin Stregevsky

Folks, once you've seen 50, 60, or 100 toolbar buttons across on a single monitor, you'll never want to go back. It's possible on a 3840x2160 ("4K" or "Ultra HD / UHD") monitor, measuring 39, 40, 42, or 43 inches diagonally, for U.S. $350 (Seiki SE39UY04, 30 Hz) to $700. You don't need a high-end graphics card to run such a beast at 30 Hz; just a laptop running Intel 4600 graphics, or an HDMI-to-USB active adapter ($70). Trust me: I run two 4K 39s from a single business-class laptop.


2015-11-13 10:38:19

Chris

It would be great if Microsoft would allow multiple QATs, and have them tied to a specific function, like report design or print preview, so they would appear/hide automatically. And it would be especially nice if on top of that, they allowed graphical dragging and dropping the buttons from a list, and allowed them to be exported and imported into specific applications, and controlled through VBA, thus allowing easy automation and/or hiding of functions for deployed applications. Of wait, that would be just like MS Office 2003 and earlier. Can't have that. That would not look good for the fluent interface team.


2013-08-05 08:16:56

Bryan

I fit 49 on my screen before the >> button was added (Word/Excel 2007).


2013-08-03 11:35:34

Hilary Powers

Yes, Jack is right - there's no mystic force to 20. I just added enough tools to push my QAT to 26, 25 of which show up at my usual window width. Stretch or shrink the window, and they move out of the >> range or into it.


2013-08-03 09:46:20

Jack T

Your tips are usually very accurate, but I feel I must take exception to this one. You say you can have 20 tools on the QAT -- however that is not true since when you reach too many to be 'displayed' the QAT will gain a >> symbol which when clicked displays additional tools you included. As far as I know there is no definite limit to the number of tools for the QAT (but you're right the QAT is restricted to one screen line).


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