How Many Items Can be Added to the Quick Access Toolbar?

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 5, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2021


1

Liz is thinking of upgrading to Office 365. She tried it as a free trial, but it only seemed to allow adding a very few items to the Quick Access Toolbar. So, Liz is wondering if Microsoft has reduced the number of items that can be put on the QAT.

The short answer is no, they haven't decreased the number. What Liz may be detecting is that Microsoft increased the width of the tools you can add to the QAT. (They did this to make it easier to use the tools on a touch screen.) This means that the number of tools visible on the screen will appear to be fewer than in older versions of Word. You can keep adding them just like you always have, though.

In fact, there doesn't seem to be an upper limit to the number of tools you can add. The number of tools displayed will be limited by the resolution and size of your monitor, as mentioned, but you can keep adding, even if you can't immediately see all the tools. If not all of the tools can be displayed, then Word displays a >> icon at the right side of the QAT. Click the icon, and you'll see more tools on a "pop-out row." If you have even more tools (in other words, the number of tools can't be displayed in the pop-out row), then at the end of that row you'll see a drop-down arrow you can click to display even more tools.

A common request made by those with many tools on their QAT is that the overflow be automatically displayed on a second row, without the need to click the >> icon. If you would like to lend your voice to this request, you can do so by visiting this page on Microsoft's User Voice site:

https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/42069706-qat-overflow-to-2nd-row

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13806) applies to Microsoft Word 2021.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Freezing the Top Three Rows

Excel allows you to freeze rows or columns in your worksheet so that they don't scroll. How you freeze them can be a bit ...

Discover More

Highlighting Every Thousandth Character

Not satisfied with the detail provided by the Word Count feature in Word? Perhaps you want to actually know where every ...

Discover More

Removing Everything Except Duplicates

Excel includes a built-in tool that will remove duplicate rows from a worksheet. If you want to remove non-duplicate ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Typing in Boxes

Do you have bothersome boxes appear around the text in your document? Here's how you can get rid of them and make your ...

Discover More

Adding Common Line Spacing Options

Sometimes the options presented by Word's tools don't exactly meet our formatting needs. Rather than changing the tools ...

Discover More

Making Draft View the Default View

Word normally uses Print Layout view to display your documents. You may want, instead, to always use Draft view. Here's ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 7 - 7?

2020-12-05 22:22:18

Thiers Halliwell

I use several COM Add-ins with MS Word, but in its 'wisdom' it sometimes decides to omit them because it considers they slow the start-up process, meaning that I have to reload them manually using the Developer/COM Add-ins pane.
Is there any way of making the Add-ins permanently 'sticky'?


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.