Custom groups in/on the Word 2016 Quick Access bar?

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Is it possible to add a “group button” to the QA bar so that then select commands could be added to the “group” and thus “shorten” the space needed now that the buttons each take up more room?

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

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Hi Chuck
You will have more joy customising the ribbon.
I believe that MS deliberately limited the QAT to the limits you have highlighted.
Geof

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Ah well…

OK, thanks Geof.

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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As I told you in your other post, the only way to do this is by customizing the Ribbon and then adding a menu button from that Ribbon to the QAT. This is best done through XML editing and vba, not by using the Customize the Ribbon command in Word.

http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tip_pages/customize_ribbon_main.html

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Yea, I’m sorry Charles. I’ve been a bit out to lunch the last couple days. Anyway, this seems like a good deal more bother than it’s worth. I’ll just learn to cope.

Thanks,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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I refuse to touch Word 2016 until it settles down. I spent my time as a pioneer on the bleeding edge.

You know how you can tell a pioneer? From the arrows sticking out of them. It seems you are picking up a few arrows. I hope it is worth it.

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From the number of posts you are making about the QAT and Ribbon, it may be time to bite the bullet and learn to do it through XML.
Once you can do it, the Ribbon interface becomes very malleable.

I’m attaching two screenshots.

The second shows a custom tab with a menu button expanded. Another button is “All” which covers all of the menu buttons. The first screenshot shows the All button on the QAT where it gives access to all of the custom menus. This gives me access to my menus directly from the QAT even if I am on some other tab.

If you are doing a lot of customizing, this is a skill worth learning. The subhead on Greg’s page “It’s not rocket science!” is true.

Any button you can put on a Ribbon tab can be put on the QAT. Further, the Ribbon tab that you pull the QAT icon from can, itself, be hidden.

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Charles, I guess I just have a penchant for arrow wounds! Windows 10 went OK, so I suppose I am looking for the same type of relief in Office 2016. In fact the only real hurdle I have come across (that I haven’t either solved, dealt with, or accepted in the past) is the new spacing on the QA bar. By happenstance I fell across setting up a button for a tab (user-defined Macros) so I am “just wondering” if I can re-group “critical” commands into mew tabs, and then placing those tabs on the QA. I just wish they (MS) would have offered the option to space the QA bar just like 2010 (and other prior versions?). I was a happy camper with my “old” setup.

The problem of course is that there is enough about 2016 that I like so that I would rather solve the challenge rather than revert to prior version.

Chuck

Chuck Billow

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First, I’m curious as to what it you like about Word 2016 that makes you think the pain is worth it.

Not as handy as the QAT, but you can, within the interface, create a new tab and put icons for your macros on the custom tab. Again, this is something that is much better done using full XML customization rather than through Word.

One thing about Microsoft is a penchant to “fix” things that are not broken because they think it will attract new customers. They tend to do this without giving much thought to their established user base.

A prime example is the change to “text boundaries” in Word 2013. That was done because it made programming easier. They didn’t realize people actually used them. The people who program and design Word do not actually use it.

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Since I was using 2010, it seemed reasonable that it was time to upgrade. I like the ability to edit PDF’s in Word, and it is close enough to prior versions to not be a totally new experience. And really, my objections to date seem relatively minor. The one that causes me a bit of bother is the button size on the QA bar. While I see the reasoning behind making it more touch screen compatible, they could have, I would think, just have made the selection of “mouse-compatible” closer to the prior versions so that so much real estate wouldn’t be lost.

Because I don’t employ all or many of the more sophisticated features of Word, or Outlook for that matter, I come across seemingly little things that can make a world of difference — some positive and some not so — as I move through a project and look for a feature or capability that I hadn’t used for a while.

Based on personal experience as well as your comments lead me to think that perhaps Microsoft might need a broader input base from the “casual user” as well, so that coming across some of these “details” might help.

Chuck

Chuck Billow

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