Chapter 23. Customizing the Excel User Interface

IN THIS CHAPTER

About the Quick Access toolbar

Adding frequently used commands to the Quick Access toolbar

Adding commands that are otherwise not available

A software program's user interface consists of all the ways that the user interacts with the software. In Excel, the user interface consists of

  • The Ribbon

  • The Quick Access toolbar

  • Right-click shortcut menus

  • Keyboard shortcuts

This chapter describes how to make changes to two Excel user interface components: the Ribbon and the Quick Access toolbar. You might want to customize these elements to make Excel more suited to the way you use it.

23.1. Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access toolbar is always visible, regardless of which Ribbon tab is selected. After you customize the Quick Access toolbar, your frequently used commands will always be one click away.

NOTE

The only situation in which the Quick Access toolbar is not visible is in Full Screen mode, which is enabled by choosing View Workbook Views Full Screen. To cancel Full Screen mode, right-click any cell and choose Close Full Screen, or just press Esc(ape).

23.1.1. About the Quick Access toolbar

By default, the Quick Access toolbar is located on the left side of Excel title bar, above the Ribbon (see Figure 23.1). It includes three tools:

  • Save: Saves the active workbook

  • Undo: Reverses the effect of the last action

  • Redo: Reverses the effect of the last undo

If you prefer, you can move the Quick Access toolbar below the Ribbon. To do so, right-click the Quick Access toolbar and choose Show Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon. Moving the Quick Access toolbar below the Ribbon uses additional vertical space on your screen. In other words, you'll be able to see one less row of your worksheet if you move the Quick Access Toolbar from its default location. Unlike traditional toolbars, the Quick Access Toolbar cannot be made free-floating so you can move it to a convenient location. It always appears either above or below the Ribbon.

Figure 23.1. The default location for the Quick Access toolbar is on the left side of the Excel title bar.

Commands on the Quick Access toolbar always appear as a small icon, with no text. When you hover your mouse pointer over an icon, you see the name of the command and a brief description.

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar consists of adding new commands to it. If you find that you use some Excel commands frequently, you can make these commands easily accessible by adding them to your Quick Access toolbar. You can also rearrange the order of the icons.

As far as I can tell, there is no limit to the number of commands that you can add. The Quick Access toolbar always displays only a single line of icons. If the number of icons exceeds the Excel window width, it displays an additional icon at the end: More Controls. Click the More Controls icon, and the hidden Quick Access toolbar icons appear in a pop-up window.

23.1.2. Adding new commands to the Quick Access toolbar

You can add a new command to the Quick Access toolbar in three ways:

  • Click the Quick Access toolbar drop-down control, which is located on the right side of the Quick Access toolbar (see Figure 23.2). The list contains a few commonly used commands. Select a command from the list, and Excel adds it to your Quick Access toolbar.

  • Right-click any control on the Ribbon and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar. The control is added to your Quick Access toolbar, after the last control.

  • Use the Quick Access Toolbar tab in the Excel Options dialog box. A quick way to access this dialog box is to right-click any Ribbon control and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar.

Figure 23.2. This drop-down list is one way to add a new command to the Quick Access toolbar.

The remainder of this section discusses the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box, shown in Figure 23.3.

The left side of the dialog box displays a list of Excel commands, and the right side shows the commands currently on your Quick Access toolbar. Above the command list on the left is the Choose Commands From drop-down list from which you can filter the list. Select an item from the drop-down list, and the list displays only the commands for that item. In Figure 23.3, the list shows commands in the Popular Commands category.

Figure 23.3. Use the Quick Access Toolbar tab in the Excel Options dialog box to customize the Quick Access toolbar.

Some of the items in the drop-down list are

  • Popular Commands: Displays commands that Excel users commonly use

  • Commands Not in the Ribbon: Displays a list of commands that you cannot access from the Ribbon

  • All Commands: Displays a complete list of Excel commands

  • Macros: Displays a list of all available macros

  • File Tab: Displays the commands available in the Backoffice menu

  • Home Tab: Displays all commands available when the Home tab is active

In addition, the Choose Commands From drop-down list contains an item for every other tab. To add an item to your Quick Access toolbar, select it from the list on the left and then click Add. The command appears in the list on the right.

You can create a Quick Access toolbar configuration that's specific to a particular workbook. In other words, the commands on the Quick Access toolbar appear only when a particular workbook is active. Start by activating the workbook, and then display the Customize Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box. When you add a command to the Quick Access toolbar, use the drop-down list in the upper right to specify the workbook (only the active workbook is available as a choice). By default, customizations are For All Documents option.


Sometimes, you need to do some guessing to find a particular command. For example, the command that displays the recent file list is named Open Recent File, not Recent Files.

NOTE

Some commands simply aren't available. For example, I would like the Quick Access toolbar to display the command to toggle page break display on a worksheet. As far as I can tell, the only way to issue that command is to display the Advanced tab of the Excel Options dialog box, and then scroll down until you find the Show Page Breaks check box.

When you select Macros from the Choose Commands From drop-down, Excel lists all available macros. You can attach a macro to a Quick Access Toolbar icon so that when you click the icon, the macro is executed. If you add a macro to your Quick Access toolbar, you can click the Modify button to change the text and choose a different icon for the macro.

When you finish making your Quick Access Toolbar customizations, click OK to close the Excel Options dialog box. The new icon will appear on the Quick Access toolbar.

The only times you ever need to use the Quick Access Toolbar tab in the Excel Options dialog box is when you want to add a command that's not on the Ribbon, add a command that executes a macro, or rearrange the order of the icons. In all other situations, it's much easier to locate the command in the Ribbon, right-click the command, and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.


23.1.3. Other Quick Access toolbar actions

Other Quick Access toolbar actions include the following:

  • Rearranging the Quick Access toolbar icons: If you want to change the order of your Quick Access toolbar icons, you can do so from the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box. Select the command and then use the Up and Down arrow buttons on the right to move the icon.

  • Removing Quick Access toolbar icons: The easiest way to remove an icon from your Quick Access toolbar is to right-click the icon and choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar. You can also use the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box. Just select the command in the list on the right and click Remove.

  • Resetting the Quick Access toolbar: If you want to return the Quick Access toolbar to its default state, display the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box and click the Reset button. Then choose Rest Only Quick Access Toolbar. All your customizations disappear, and the Quick Access toolbar then displays its three default commands.

You can't undo resetting the Quick Access toolbar. Also, restoring defaults also resets any Ribbon customizations that you made.


Sharing User Interface Customizations

In the Excel Options dialog box, the Quick Access Toolbar tab and the Customize Ribbon tab both have an Import/Export button. You can use this button to save and open files that contain user interface customizations. For example, you might create a new Ribbon tab and want to share it with your office mates.

Click the Import/Export button, and you get two options:

  • Import Customization File: You are prompted to locate the file. Before you load a file, you are asked whether you want to replace all existing Ribbon and Quick Access toolbar customizations.

  • Export All Customization: You are prompted to provide a filename and location for the file.

The information is stored in a file that has a *.exportedUI extension. Unfortunately, importing and exporting is not implemented very well. Excel does not allow you to save or load only the Quick Access toolbar customization or only the Ribbon customizations. Both types of customizations are exported and imported. Therefore, you cannot share your Quick Access toolbar customization without also sharing your Ribbon customizations.


23.2. Customizing the Ribbon

The Ribbon is Excel's primary user interface. It consists of tabs along the top. When you click a tab, it displays a set of commands, and the commands are arranged in groups.

NOTE

The Ribbon was introduced in Excel 2007, but it could not be customized. Excel 2010, however, makes it fairly easy to modify the Ribbon in a number of ways.

23.2.1. Why customize the Ribbon?

Most users will have no need to customize the Ribbon. If you find that you tend to use the same command over and over, though — and you are constantly clicking tabs to access these commands — then you might benefit for customizing the Ribbon in such a way that the commands you need are on the same tab.

23.2.2. What can be customized

You can customize the Ribbon in these ways:

  • Tabs

    • Add a new custom tab.

    • Delete custom tabs.

    • Add a new group to tab.

    • Change the order of the tabs.

    • Change the name of a tab.

    • Hide built-in tabs.

  • Groups

    • Add new custom groups.

    • Add commands to a custom group.

    • Remove commands from custom groups.

    • Remove groups from a tab.

    • Move a group to a different tab.

    • Change the order of the groups within a tab.

    • Change the name of a group.

NOTE

To restore all or part of the Ribbon to its default state, use the Reset button on the Customize Ribbon tab of the Excel Options dialog box. Click this button to display two options: Reset Only Selected Ribbon Tab, and Rest All Customizations. If you choose the latter, you will also lose any Quick Access toolbar customizations that you made.

That's a fairly comprehensive list of customization options, but there are some actions that you cannot do:

  • Remove built-in tabs — but you can hide them.

  • Remove commands from built-in groups.

  • Change the order of commands in a built-in group.

NOTE

Unfortunately, you cannot customize the Ribbon (or Quick Access toolbar) by using VBA macros. However, developers can write RibbonX code and store it in workbook files. When the file is open, the Ribbon is modified to display new commands. Writing RibbonX is relatively complicated, and beyond the scope of this book.

23.2.3. How to customize the Ribbon

Customizing the Ribbon is done via the Customize Ribbon panel of the Excel Options dialog box (see Figure 23.4). The quickest way to display this dialog box is to right-click anywhere on the Ribbon, and choose Customize The Ribbon.

Figure 23.4. The Customize Ribbon tab of the Excel Options dialog box.

Customizing the Ribbon is very similar to customizing the Quick Access toolbar, which I describe earlier in this chapter. The only difference is that you need to decide where to put the command within the Ribbon. The general procedure is

  1. Use the Choose Command From drop-down list on the left to display various groups of commands.

  2. Locate the command in the list box on the left, and select it.

  3. Use the Customize the Ribbon drop-down list on the right to choose a group of tabs. Main Tabs refer to the tabs that are always visible; Tool Tabs refer to the contextual tabs that appear when a particular object is selected.

  4. In the list box on the right, select the tab and the group where you would like to put the command. You'll need to click the plus-sign control to expand the tab name so that it displays its group names.

  5. Click the Add button to add the selected command from the left to the selected group on the right.

Use the New Tab button to create a new tab, and the New Group button to create a new group within a tab. New tabs and groups are given generic names, so you'll probably want to give them more meaningful names. Use the Rename button to rename the selected tab or group. You can also rename built-in tabs and groups.

To rearrange the order of tabs, groups, or commands, select the item and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons on the right. Note that you can move a group into a different tab.

NOTE

Although you cannot remove a built-in tab, you can hide the tab by clearing the check box next to its name.

Figure 23.5 shows a part of a customized Ribbon. In this case, I added two groups to the View tab (to the right of the Zoom group): Extra Commands (with four new commands), and Text to Speech (with two new commands).

Figure 23.5. The View tab, with two new groups added.

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