Manage the contents of the Quick Access toolbar

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There are times that you'll find yourself accessing

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a particular tool more often than normal.

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Instead of constantly switching ribbon tabs.

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In this video,

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you'll discover how to customize the quick

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access toolbar to suit your immediate needs.

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After this video,

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you will learn to add or remove standard tools from the quick access toolbar,

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customization, dropdown menu

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add or remove any tool in the ribbon to the quick access toolbar,

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change the display or location of the quick access toolbar.

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Let's look at the customization features of AUTOCAD, quick access toolbar

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for this video, we'll be using a blank new drawing.

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Of course,

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the changes we'll make here can be done at any time from your open drawings.

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An important part of auto Cad's menu system is the quick access toolbar located at

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the top of the interface and just to the right of the application menu,

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most people refer to it by its initials or qat.

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So we'll do the same throughout this video.

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There are nine tools displayed by default,

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but you can easily customize the menu to fit your needs,

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clicking on the small arrow down icon at the end of the QAT

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and just before the share icon will display a drop down menu of available tools.

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The checked items are displayed,

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but there is another set of commonly used tools that you can choose from.

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Let's turn on one of the most common additions to the qat, which is layer,

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you'll just click on it in the list.

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Selecting or deselecting a tool will cause the drop down menu to collapse.

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And you'll see the layer tool now displayed in the qat.

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If you have too many tools turned on for the available space,

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you'll be able to see the others via a flyout menu at the end.

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Perhaps there's a default tool that you never use and you would like to remove again,

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click on the customization icon

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and remove the check from the tool you don't want to see,

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let's deselect save to web and mobile and it will be removed from the qat.

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Customizing the qat can give you a huge advantage in your efficiency.

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As our example shows if you're constantly needing access to the layer,

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pull down the qat,

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lets you access it at any time without having to change ribbon tabs.

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While Autocad gives you a robust set of tools. By default.

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Along with the most common additions,

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you can easily add any tool that you find on the ribbon as well

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to place a ribbon tool onto the qat.

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Right. Click on your desired tool and select add to quick access toolbar.

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Let's do that with the dimension tool.

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As soon as you click the add to quick access toolbar button,

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the pop up dialogue goes away and the dimension tool is added at the end of the qat.

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If your workflow no longer requires that you have

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an added tool from the ribbon in the qat,

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it's easily removed. Let's right. Click on the tool we want to remove from the qat.

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In this case, the same dimension tool we just added

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and select, remove from quick access toolbar.

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It really is just that easy to add and remove tools from the qat.

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You can do it at any time and it can either be a

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permanent change or just for the next 10 minutes for a specific task.

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There are a few other things available to you by right, clicking on an item in the qat,

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you can add a separator line to help you group your tools.

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The separator will appear after the tool that you right, clicked on.

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Let's separate the web and mobile tools,

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right? Click on the save as icon

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and click on add separator.

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You'll see a vertical bar appear between save as and open from web and mobile.

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Now let's add the save to web and mobile back onto the Q A

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open the pull down and check save to web and mobile.

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Even though it's listed in the pull down just after open from web and mobile,

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it will reappear at the end of the qat.

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We want to put it back next to open from web and mobile. But

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you can't move tools in the pull down to reposition them.

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But there is a way to do that

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from the pull down. Click on more commands,

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the collapsed version of the C

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I dialogue will appear,

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click on the double down pointing chevrons on the right

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side of the customizations in all files panel to expand it

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next, expand the quick access toolbars menu item and then also on the sub item.

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These are the tools that you see on your qat.

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Simply drag the save to web and mobile tool up so

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that it's between open from web and mobile and plot.

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We can go ahead and add our next separator from this interface,

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right? Click on save to web and mobile and select insert separator.

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There are many tools available to you from the CU I interface.

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You can add any tool by simply dragging and dropping it into the qat list.

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Many of the actions can be done via the interface.

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But changing the order of the qat can only be done here.

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Let's click OK. To dismiss the dialogue and save our changes.

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You should now see the two web and mobile tools isolated between the two separators.

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If you'd like to remove the separators and return the Q A to its default state,

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just right click on each and select remove from quick access toolbar.

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Finally, you can choose to display the Q A

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below the ribbon from the qat, right, click menu,

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select the bottom option to display it below the ribbon.

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I like it to be in its default position.

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So let's right. Click on the qat

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the menu item now says it will show it above the ribbon.

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Let's click on that to put it back.

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There's actually another place you can choose these options.

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It's right at the bottom of the customized quick access toolbar,

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pulldown menu that we looked at earlier.

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They do exactly the same thing.

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It's just in a couple of different places

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in the same area. You can also access the CU I method or turn on the old style menu bar.

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Let's select that to display it in addition to the ribbon tabs.

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Remember the file, edit view, et cetera menu

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if you ever need it. This is how you turn it back on.

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But keep in mind that, that menu,

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the pull downs and the tool bars have

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not been updated since the ribbon was introduced.

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So it won't contain any commands that have been added since then.