How to Customise the Quick Access Toolbar in Microsoft PowerPoint

Designing polished corporate presentations, lecture slide decks, and visual pitch books requires repetitive formatting tasks: aligning shapes, changing fill colours, grouping objects, and testing slideshow animations. Constantly switching between the Home, Insert, Shape Format, and Animations ribbon tabs breaks creative flow and slows down your presentation workflow. The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) in Microsoft PowerPoint provides a persistent, highly customisable strip of action buttons that remains visible regardless of which ribbon tab is currently active.

Why Customise the Quick Access Toolbar in PowerPoint?

The default PowerPoint interface positions only a handful of generic commands (Save, Undo, Redo, and Start From Beginning) on the Quick Access Toolbar. Tailoring this toolbar delivers decisive productivity benefits:

• Eliminates Ribbon Tab Hunting: Frequently used alignment and formatting tools (such as Align Centre, Send to Back, or Eyedropper) become accessible in a single click, eliminating dozens of unnecessary mouse movements per slide.
• Access Commands Not on the Ribbon: PowerPoint features dozens of specialised commands that do not reside on standard ribbon tabs, which can only be accessed by adding them to the Quick Access Toolbar.
• Numerical Keyboard Shortcuts: Every icon pinned to the Quick Access Toolbar receives an automatic sequential key combination (e.g., Alt + 1, Alt + 2, Alt + 3 on Windows), enabling instant keyboard execution of your most frequent actions.
• Repositioning for Ergonomic Editing: You can position the toolbar below the ribbon directly above your slide canvas to minimise vertical cursor travel.

Method 1: Add Any Ribbon Button Instantly via Right-Click

The fastest way to populate your Quick Access Toolbar is by pinning tools directly from the active ribbon interface.

1. Navigate through the PowerPoint ribbon tabs to locate any command, drop-down menu, or gallery button you frequently use (such as Align on the Home or Shape Format tab).
2. Right-click the icon or button text.
3. Select Add to Quick Access Toolbar from the contextual menu.
4. The command icon immediately appears on your Quick Access Toolbar, ready for one-click access across all future PowerPoint presentations.

Method 2: Deep Customisation via PowerPoint Options

To access commands not displayed on the standard ribbon, reorder your icon sequence, or create dividers, use the dedicated Options dialogue.

1. Click the small down-arrow (Customise Quick Access Toolbar) situated at the far end of the toolbar, then select More Commands…, or navigate to File > Options > Quick Access Toolbar.
2. In the dialogue box, locate the drop-down menu labelled Choose commands from: and change it from Popular Commands to Commands Not in the Ribbon or All Commands.
3. Browse the alphabetical list to identify powerful presentation tools, such as:
   • Align Centre / Align Middle
   • Distribute Horizontally / Distribute Vertically
   • Group / Ungroup
   • Eyedropper
   • Selection Pane
   • Lock Object
4. Select your desired tool and click the Add >> button in the centre to transfer it to the right-hand column.
5. To organise the visual order of your tools, select any item in the right column and click the Move Up or Move Down triangle buttons.
6. To separate command groups visually, select <Separator> from the top of the left column and click Add >>.
7. Click OK to apply your custom layout.

Repositioning the Toolbar Below the Ribbon

By default, PowerPoint displays the Quick Access Toolbar above the ribbon in the application title bar. To bring tools closer to your slide workspace:

1. Click the down-arrow at the end of the Quick Access Toolbar.
2. Select Show Below the Ribbon.
3. The toolbar moves immediately beneath the ribbon tabs and command gallery, offering full-colour command labels and reducing the distance your mouse travels between the slide canvas and your tool buttons.

Using Alt-Key Numeric Shortcuts for Instant Actions

On Windows systems, every item pinned to the Quick Access Toolbar automatically maps to an Alt key sequence:

1. Press the Alt key on your keyboard. PowerPoint displays numeric badge overlays (1, 2, 3, etc.) over each icon on the Quick Access Toolbar.
2. Press the corresponding number key to trigger that command instantly without touching the mouse. For instance, if you placed Align Centre in the first slot, pressing Alt + 1 immediately aligns your selected slide object to the horizontal centre.

Exporting and Importing Your Custom Toolbar Configuration

When switching to a new laptop, migrating to a fresh office workstation, or provisioning standard corporate environments, you can export your custom PowerPoint toolbar layout to a reusable XML file:

1. Open File > Options > Quick Access Toolbar.
2. In the bottom-right corner, click the Import/Export drop-down menu.
3. Choose Export all customizations and save the resulting .exportedUI file to your OneDrive or local drive.
4. On your secondary computer, return to this dialogue, click Import customization file, and select the saved configuration file to restore your entire layout instantly.

To master more Office productivity workflows, see how to customise the Quick Access Toolbar in Microsoft Word, learn how to lock objects and shapes to prevent accidental edits in Microsoft PowerPoint, explore how to dim previous bullet points after animation in Microsoft PowerPoint, or discover how to align and distribute objects evenly in Microsoft PowerPoint.