This excerpt, extracted from Microsoft Access 2010 Inside Out packs hundreds of time-saving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds, all in concise, fast-answer format.
This excerpt, extracted from Microsoft Access 2010 Inside Out packs hundreds of time-saving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds, all in concise, fast-answer format.
Exploring the Access 2010 Interface Table of Contents
Before you explore the many features of Microsoft
Access 2010, it's worth spending a little time looking it over and "kicking
the tires."
Like a new model of a favorite car, this latest version of Access has changes
to the body (user interface) as well as new functionality under the hood. In
this chapter and the next, we'll explore the changes to the user interface, show you how
to navigate through Microsoft's new replacement for the File menu called the
Microsoft Office Backstage view, and discuss the various components of an
Access database and how they interact.
Opening Access for the First Time
The first time you open Access 2010, you are
presented with the Privacy Options dialog box shown in Figure
2-1. This dialog box lists three radio buttons, which are not
selected by default. Note that you must have an active connection to the
Internet to use the first two options. The Use Recommended Settings radio
button, when selected, turns on several features of your Microsoft Office 2010
installation. Your computer will periodically check Microsoft's website for any
product and security updates to your Office, Windows, or other Microsoft
software. If any updates are detected, your computer will install these updates
automatically for you. Selecting this radio button also allows Access to search
Office.com's vast resources for content relevant to your search. Access
downloads this information to your local computer for faster searching when you
search for items in the Help section. Selecting this option means you will have
the latest Help information at your disposal. When you choose Use Recommend
Settings, Office downloads a special diagnostic tool that interfaces with the
Office 2010 system. You can use this tool to help identify problems with your
Office installation. Although not required to run the Office 2010 release or
Access 2010, this tool might assist you with locating the cause of any
unforeseen system crashes. Selecting Use Recommend Settings also allows you to
sign up for Microsoft's Customer Experience Improvement Program. This utility
tracks various statistics while you use Access 2010 and the Office 2010 release
and sends that information to Microsoft. By tracking how customers are using
their products, Microsoft can improve its Office line of products for future
releases. Note that this option does not send any personal information to
Microsoft. Click the Read Our Privacy Statement link in the lower-left corner
to read Microsoft's privacy statement.

Figure 2-1.
You can choose Privacy Options when you first start Access 2010.
The second radio button in the Privacy Options
dialog box, Install Updates Only, performs a subset of the features for Use
Recommend Settings. When you select this option, your computer will check
Microsoft's website only periodically for any product and security updates to
your Office, Windows, or other Microsoft software and install them. The last
radio button, Don't Make Changes, makes no changes to your Office 2010
installation. Selecting this option could leave your computer at risk, however,
because your computer will not download and install product or security
updates. After you make your selection in the Privacy dialog box, click OK to
start using Access 2010.
Note
The dialog box shown in Figure
2-1 is what we saw when opening Access for the first time using
Windows 7. You might see a slightly different sequence of prompts if you
install Office on Windows Vista.
After selecting your options in the Privacy Options
dialog box, you can always alter these settings later. For more information on
changing these settings, see Modifying
Global Settings via the Access Options Dialog Box.
Caution
If you are in a corporate
network environment, you should check with your Information Technology (IT)
department to determine whether your company has established guidelines before
making selections in the Privacy Options dialog box.
Getting Started with Access 2010
If you are a seasoned developer
with the 2007 version of Access, the user interface of Access 2010 should be
familiar to what you've been working with. If however, you have been working
only in Access versions before 2007, be prepared for quite a shock when you
first open Access 2010. Microsoft revamped the entire look and feel of the user
interface in Access 2007 and made additional changes in Access 2010 and the
other products in the Office 2010 release. To some degree, users of versions
before Access 2007 will have a challenging task adjusting to all the changes
the development team has incorporated into Access 2007 and Access 2010. If you
are one of these users, you might even experience a short-term decrease in
productivity as you become accustomed to where commands and tools are located
on the new user interface elements called the Backstage view and the ribbon.
(See Exploring the Microsoft
Office Backstage View, for details about the Backstage view, and Understanding
the Office Fluent Ribbon, for details about the ribbon.) For first-time
users of Access, Microsoft continues to spend a great deal of development
effort trying to make the "Access experience" easier and more
intuitive in this version. With a new
Getting Started screen, a host of ready-to-use client and web database
applications available, and a context-driven, rich graphical ribbon and
Backstage view, users will have an easier and quicker time creating professional-looking
database applications.
On first starting Access, you see a
new Getting Started screen on the New tab of the Backstage view, as shown in Figure
2-2. We will discuss all the elements of this New tab and the
Backstage view in great detail in Exploring the Microsoft
Office Backstage View.
Figure 2-2. When you first open Access 2010, you can see the new Backstage view.
Opening an Existing Database
To showcase the user interface, let's
take one of the template databases out for a test drive. Using the
TasksSample.accdb database on the companion CD, based on the Microsoft Tasks
template, we will highlight some specific areas of Access 2010. First, follow
the instructions at the beginning of this book for installing the sample files
on your hard drive. Click the Open button on the left side of the Backstage
view to see the Open dialog box shown in Figure
2-3.
Figure 2-3. You can use the Open dialog box to find and open any existing database file.
In the Open dialog box, select the
TasksSample.accdb file from the folder in which you installed the sample
databases, and then click OK. You can also double-click the file name to open
the database. (If you haven't set options in Windows Explorer to show file name
extensions for registered applications, you won't see the .accdb extension for
your database files.) The Tasks sample application will start, and you'll see
the startup form for the Tasks Sample database along with all the various
database objects listed on the left side, as shown in Figure
2-4.
Figure 2-4. When you
open the Tasks Sample database, you can see the user interface for Access 2010.
Note
If
you installed the sample files for this book in the default location from the
companion CD, you can find the files in the Microsoft Press\Access 2010 Inside
Out folder on your C drive.
We will discuss each of the Access
2010 user interface elements in greater detail in the following sections, but
for now, here is a brief overview of the different elements. The upper-left
corner of the screen contains a tab called File. This tab, called the Backstage
view, replaces the Microsoft Office Button from Access 2007. Above this tab are
a few smaller buttons on what is called the Quick Access Toolbar. This toolbar
holds frequently used commands within Access 2010. Beneath the Quick Access
Toolbar is a series of four tabs (Home, Create, External Data, and Database
Tools) that contain many commands, options, and drop-down list boxes. These tabs
are on what Microsoft refers to as the Office Fluent Ribbon and it replaces
menu bars and toolbars from versions of Access before 2007. You will interact
heavily with the ribbon when developing and using Access 2010 databases because
most of the commands you need are contained on it.
Beneath the ribbon is a small
message that says "Security Warning." This Message Bar
informs you if Access has disabled potentially harmful content in this
database. See Understanding Content Security, to
learn what this message means and what you can do to avoid it.
On the left side of the screen is
the Navigation pane, which replaces the Database window from versions of Access
before 2007. In the Navigation pane, you can find all the various database
objects for this database (tables, queries, forms, and so on).
To the right of the Navigation pane
is where your database objects open. In Figure
2-4, you see that the Task List form is open. All possible views of
your database objects appear in this area. Just beneath the Navigation pane and
main object window is the status bar. The status bar displays text descriptions
from field controls, various keyboard settings (Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll
Lock), and object view buttons.
Exploring the Microsoft Office Backstage View
The new Microsoft Office Backstage
View in Access 2010 replaces the Microsoft Office Button from Access 2007, and
you can display its collection of commands by clicking the File tab from within
any database. Figure
2-5 shows you the available commands on the Info tab of the Backstage
view.
Figure 2-5. You can
view many commands by clicking the File tab to open the Backstage view.
The Backstage view contains
information and commands that apply to an entire database, as well as commands
that were on the Microsoft Office Button in Access 2007. If you used versions
of Access before 2007, the Backstage view contains commands that were on the
File menu. At the upper-left section of the Backstage View, you'll see five
commands that show at all times "Save, Save Object As, Save Database As, Open,
and Close Database.
Using these commands, you can do
any of the following:
-
Save. Save
design changes for the database object that is open and has the focus in the
Navigation pane.
-
Save Object As.
Save a copy of the current open object that has the focus or the object
that has the focus in the Navigation pane.
-
Save Database As.
Save a copy of the current database. Note that if you click this command,
Access closes the database that you have open so that it can create the copy.
-
Open. Open
any existing database file on your computer or network.
-
Close Database.
Close the currently open database and return to the New tab in the
Backstage view.
Listed below the first five
commands on the Backstage view, Access, by default, displays the file names of
the last four databases you recently opened. To open any of these databases
quickly, click the file name in the list. The six main tabs of the Backstage
view "Info, Recent, New, Print, Save & Publish, and Help "are beneath the
list of recently opened databases. Commands and information displayed on these
tabs can change depending upon the current state of your database or if you are
using a client versus a web database.
Info Tab
Let's first explore the Info tab
previously shown in Figure
2-5. The Info tab displays the name of your database and the full
path to its location. Beneath the file path, you'll see an Enable Content
button and security information about your database. You'll learn more about
these settings in Understanding
Content Security. The button below it, Compact & Repair Database,
compacts and repairs your database file. The last button on the Info tab, Encrypt
With Password, creates an encrypted version of your database with a password.
On the far right of the Info tab, you'll see a thumbnail preview of your
database in its current state. Beneath the preview picture, is the View And
Edit Database Properties link. Click this link to open the Database Properties
dialog box to review and change properties specific to this database.
Recent Tab
The Recent tab, shown in Figure
2-6, displays a list of the databases you previously opened. If the
number of databases you open exceeds the space to display them, Access provides
a scroll bar for you to scroll up and down to see the complete list. At the
bottom of the Recent tab, you'll see a check box called Quickly Access This
Number of Recent Databases, which is selected by default. Clear this check box
if you do not want to show a list of recent databases you have opened above the
Info tab on the Backstage view. You can also customize the number of databases
you want to display above the Info tab by changing the default value of four
databases in the text box at the bottom of the screen.
Figure 2-6. The
Recent tab of the Backstage view displays a list of recent database files you
opened.
To the right of each database file
name, you'll see a pushpin button. Click this button to pin that specific
database file to the displayed list of recent databases. Right-click any of the
recent databases displayed, and Access provides a shortcut menu with four
options, as shown in Figure
2-7. Select Open from the list, and Access opens the highlighted
database. When you select the Pin To List option, Access pins that specific
database file to the displayed list of recent databases. When you select the
third option, Remove From List, Access removes that database file from the list
of recent databases. Note that when you remove the database file from the list,
you're not deleting the database from your computer; you are only removing it
from this list on the Backstage view. When you select the last option on the
list, Clear Unpinned Items, Access prompts you for confirmation that you want
to remove all unpinned items from the list. Click Yes in the confirmation
dialog box, and Access removes all database files from the list of recent
database files that you have not pinned. You can use this option to quickly
clear database files that you might have deleted and no longer wish to use from
your list of recent databases.

Figure 2-7. Right-click
a database file to see additional options you can use to manage your list of
recent databases.
New Tab
The New tab, shown in Figure
2-8, is the first tab shown in the Backstage view when you open
Access. The Office.com Templates area in the center of the screen displays
different template categories grouped by subject. Click one of these categories
to change the display in the center of the screen to a list of templates that
you can download from the Office.com website. Note that you must be connected
to the Internet to see and download any templates in each of these categories.
These templates were created by the Access development team and developers in
the Access community. The templates represent some of the more common uses for
a database and are therefore presented to you first. Microsoft is continually
adding and modifying the selections available in the Office.com categories, so
the list you see might be different from that shown in Figure
2-8. Be sure to check these groups from time to time to see if a new
template exists for your specific needs. You can also search for a template on
the Office.com website by typing your search criteria in the Search Office.com
for Templates text box.
Figure 2-8. You can
create a database from a template, create a new blank or web database, or
search for a database file to open on the New tab of the Backstage view in
Access 2010.
Just above Office.com Templates in
the middle of the screen are five buttons under Available Templates. The first
button on the left is labeled Blank Database. You use this button to start the
process of creating a new empty client database with no objects. See Chapter
4, for details on how to create a new blank client database. The next
button to the right, Blank Web Database, starts the process of creating a new
empty web database with no objects. See Chapter 6, for
details on how to create a new blank web database. When you click Recent
Templates, Access displays a list of database templates that you recently
created from this New tab. To view the list of database templates available on
your local drive that were installed with Access, click Sample Templates. Five
of the sample templates listed under Sample Templates are web-compatible
templates --Assets, Charitable Contributions, Contacts, Issues, and Projects.
The last button under Available Templates, My Templates, lists any database
templates that you created and saved locally to your computer. See Chapter 26, "The
Finishing Touches," on the
companion CD, for details on how to create your own database template.
Just beneath the Available
Templates text at the top of the screen you'll see three navigation buttons.
The Back, Forward, and Home buttons function like web browser buttons. As you navigate
between the various template screens, you can click Back to move you back one
screen in the history of screens you've opened. Click Forward to move you
forward one screen in the history of screens you've opened. Click Home to take
you back to the main page of the New tab on the Backstage view.
The task pane on the right of the
New tab displays a graphic of the database template you select from the list of
templates. For new blank databases you create, Access leaves this graphic
empty. You can type the name of a new database file in the File Name text box
beneath this graphic and browse to a location to save the database using the
Browse button.
Print Tab
The Print tab, shown in Figure
2-9, displays three commands "Quick Print, Print, and Print Preview.
Click Quick Print to send the selected database object to the printer
immediately. Be careful here, because the object that has the focus might not
be the one currently on the screen. If the focus is on an object in the
Navigation pane, that object is printed instead of the object currently open.
When you click Print, Access opens the Print dialog box to print whatever
object currently has the focus. Here again, be careful about which object has
the focus. Click Print Preview to preview the printed appearance of what you
are about to print on your monitor.
Figure 2-9. The Print
tab of the Backstage view displays commands to print objects in your database.
Save & Publish Tab
The Save & Publish tab, shown
in Figure
2-10, displays commands to save your database and objects in other
formats and to publish your application to Access Services. In the center of
the Save & Publish tab, you'll see two categories "File Types and
Publish" and three commands "Save Database As, Save Object As, and
Publish To Access Services. If you click one of these commands, additional
commands appear in a submenu to the right. Click Save Database As and you'll
see two categories for this option "Database File Types and Advanced". Under
Database File Types, you can choose to save a copy of your entire database in
2007/2010 (.accdb), 2002/2003 (.mdb), or 2000 (.mdb) Access format. Note that
if you choose to save the entire database, Access closes the database you have
open so that it can create the copy. You can use the last option under Database
File Types, Template (.accdt), to save your database as an Access database
template. To start these commands, you can either double-click the command you
want or highlight the command and then click the Save As button at the bottom
of the screen. Under the Advanced category, the first option, Package And Sign,
packages your database as a Cabinet file (CAB) and digitally signs it.
Double-click the Make ACCDE command to make an execute-only version (.mde or
.accde) of your database. When you double-click the Back-up Database command,
Access creates a complete backup of your database file with the current date in
the file name. You can choose the last command under the Advanced category,
SharePoint, to publish your database to a document manager server.
Figure 2-10. The Save
& Publish tab contains commands to save your objects and database in
different formats and to publish your application to Access Services.
Click Save Object As under File
Types on the Save & Publish tab, and Access displays a different set of
commands on the right, as seen in Figure
2-11. When you double-click Save Object As on the right side, the
default is to save a copy of the current open object that has the focus or the
object that has the focus in the Navigation pane. Double-click PDF Or XPS to
publish a copy of the current open object as a Portable Document Format (PDF)
or XML Paper Specification (XPS) file. The last command for Save Object As,
Save As Client Object, saves a copy of the current open web object to a client
object format. See Chapter
6 for details on how to create a web database and work with web
objects.
Figure 2-11. You can
use the Save Object As command to save a copy of your database objects into
different formats.
Click Publish To Access Services
under the Publish category on the Save & Publish tab, and Access displays
commands and information on the right concerning the new Access Services
feature in Access 2010, as seen in Figure
2-12.
Figure 2-12. You can
publish your database to Access Services from the Save & Publish tab of the
Backstage view.
Under Access Services Overview, you'll
see information and bullet points on when using Access Services might benefit
you. You'll also find a link you can click to watch a prepared video demo of
Access Services on the Office.com website. Click Run Compatibility Checker to
scan your database and identify any issues or settings that are not supported
for Access Services. (See Chapter 6 for
details on how to create a web database and working with the Web Compatibility
Checker.) If any issues are found during the web compatibility scan, Access
enables the Web Compatibility Issues button. Click that button to open a table
that lists all the issues found. If you are currently using a web database, the
Publish To Access Services button is enabled. Clicking this button starts the
process of publishing your web database to a Microsoft SharePoint site to
become an Access Services application. To the right of the Publish To Access
Services button, you'll see two text boxes "Server URL and Site Name".
Enter the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the SharePoint server that you
want to publish to in the Server URL text box and the name of the site you want
to create in the Site Name text box. You'll learn more about all the Access
Services features later in this book, beginning in Chapter 6.
Help Tab
The Help tab of the Backstage view,
shown in Figure
2-13, displays commands and links to helpful information concerning
Access 2010 and the Office 2010 software. Under the Support category in the
center of the screen, you'll see three commands, Microsoft Office Help, Getting
Started, and Contact Us. Click Microsoft Office Help to open the Access Help
system where you can search Access topics for assistance building your
database. Click Getting Started to open a link on Office.com where you can see
a list of new features and resources pertaining to Access 2010. Click Contact
Us to go to a website where you can find links to support options, go to online
support communities, or submit suggestions to improve the product or report a
problem.
Figure 2-13. The Help
tab on the Backstage view displays links to resources, help, and support for
Access 2010.
Under the Tools For Working With
Office category in the center of the screen, you'll see two commands, Options
and Check For Updates. Click Options to open the Access Options dialog box,
where you can choose different settings and preferences for your Access
installation. Click Check For Updates to go to a website where you can run a
program that verifies that you have the latest updates for your Office system.
On the right side of the Help tab,
you'll see information about your Access 2010 and Office 2010 installed
programs. Click the Change Product Key link to open the Microsoft Office setup
dialog box to change your product key for your installation. Click the
Additional Version and Copyright Information link to open the Access About
dialog box to view the copyright information of your Access and Office
installations. Click the last link on this tab, Microsoft Software License
Terms, to view and print the licensing terms for your Office installation.
Beneath the Help tab, you can also
find these two commands at the bottom of the Backstage view:
- Options.
Opens the Access Options dialog box, where you can choose and define many
different settings and preferences for Access. See <Modifying
Global Settings via the Access Options Dialog Box, for a discussion of
these options.
- Exit. Closes
the currently open database file as well as completely exits Access.
Inside Out: Closing the Backstage view
You
can close the Backstage view quickly by pressing the Esc key. When you do this,
Access returns focus to where you were before opening the Backstage view.
Taking Advantage of the Quick Access Toolbar
Above the Backstage view is the
Quick Access Toolbar. This special toolbar gives you "quick access"
to some of the more common commands you will use in Access 2010, and you can
customize this toolbar to include additional commands. Here are the default
commands available on the Quick Access Toolbar:
-
Save. Saves
any changes to the currently selected database object
-
Undo. Undoes
the last change you made to an object or a record
-
Redo. Cancels
the last Undo change you made to an object or a record
At the right end of the Quick
Access Toolbar is a small arrow. Click that arrow, and you'll see the Customize
Quick Access Toolbar menu, as shown in Figure
2-14.
Figure 2-14. The
default Quick Access Toolbar contains the Save, Undo, and Redo commands for the
current object, and the command to customize the toolbar.
The upper section of the menu
displays common commands that you might want to add to the Quick Access
Toolbar. Note that the three default commands "Save, Undo, and Redo" have
check marks next to them. You can click any of these to clear the check mark
and remove the command from the Quick Access Toolbar. You can click any of the
other nine commands (New, Open, E-Mail, Quick Print, Print Preview, Spelling,
Mode, Refresh All, and Sync All) to add them to the right end of the Quick
Access Toolbar. Near the bottom of this menu is More Commands, which allows you
to fully customize what commands are available and how those commands appear on
the Quick Access Toolbar. The Show Below The Ribbon option on the menu allows
you to move the Quick Access Toolbar above or below the ribbon, depending on
your preference.
To customize the Quick Access
Toolbar, click the arrow on the right end and click More Commands near the bottom
of the list. The Access Options dialog box appears, with the Quick Access
Toolbar category selected, as shown in Figure
2-15.
Figure 2-15. You can
add or remove commands on the Quick Access Toolbar and change their sequence
using the Customize category in the Access Options dialog box.
On the left, you can see a list of
built-in Access commands that you can select to add to the Quick Access
Toolbar. By default, the list shows commands from the Popular Commands category
"commands that are used very frequently." You can change the list of
commands by selecting a different category from the Choose Commands From list.
The All Commands option displays the entire list of Access commands available
in alphabetical order. Just below the list of available commands is a check box
that you can select to show the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon. Clear
the check box to show the Quick Access Toolbar above the ribbon.
The list on the right side of the
screen by default displays what options are available on every Quick Access
Toolbar for all your database files. If you add, remove, or modify the commands
shown in the list on the right when you have chosen For All Documents (Default)
in the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, the changes are reflected in every
database you open with Access 2010. To customize the Quick Access Toolbar for
only the specific database you currently have open, click the arrow in the
drop-down list and select the database file path for your current database from
the list, as shown in Figure
2-16.
Figure 2-16. You can
add or remove commands on the Quick Access Toolbar for the current database by
selecting your database from the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list.
When you select the current
database, the command list below it is now empty, awaiting the changes you
request. Find a command in the list on the left, and then either doubleclick it
or click the Add button in the middle of the screen to add this command to your
custom Quick Access Toolbar, as shown in Figure
2-17. If you make a mistake and select the wrong command, select the
command in the list on the right and click Remove to eliminate it from your
custom list.
Figure 2-17. Add a
command to the Quick Access Toolbar by selecting it in the list on the left and
then clicking Add.
In addition to the built-in
commands, you can select any macros you have defined in this current database.
To do this, select Macros in the Choose Commands From list on the left.
A list of all your saved macro
objects appears, and you can add these macros directly to your custom Quick
Access Toolbar, as shown in Figure
2-18. We added one macro called mcrSample to this Tasks Sample
database to illustrate the next steps.
Caution
Do
not add a macro to your Quick Access Toolbar when you have selected the option
to customize the Quick Access Toolbar for all documents. Access displays an
error if you try to click your custom macro command in a database that does not
contain the macro you selected.
Figure 2-18. Add a
saved macro object to the Quick Access Toolbar by selecting it in the list on
the left and then clicking Add.
You can also assign custom button
images to the macro objects you select. To do so, select one of your macros in
the list on the right, and then click the Modify button to open the Modify
Button dialog box shown in Figure
2-19. From here, you can choose one of the predefined button images
available and also change the display name for this option on your custom Quick
Access Toolbar.
Figure 2-19. You can
change the button face and the display name in the Modify Button dialog box.
After you have all the commands and
macros that you want on your custom Quick Access Toolbar, you might decide that
you do not like the order in which they appear. Access 2010 allows you to
modify this order easily using the Move Up and Move Down arrow buttons at the
far right of the dialog box. (You can rest your mouse pointer on either button
to see the button name.) Select a command you want to move in the list on the
right and click the up arrow to move it up in the list, as shown in Figure
2-20. Each successive click moves that command up one more place in
the custom list. Likewise, the down arrow shifts the selected command down in
the list. In Figure
2-20, you can see that we have moved the macro titled Greeting above
the Options command.
Figure 2-20. You can
change the order of the commands on your Quick Access Toolbar by clicking the
Move Up and Move Down arrow buttons.
From top to bottom in the list on
the right, the commands appear from left to right on the Quick Access Toolbar
after the commands assigned to all databases. When you are completely satisfied
with your revisions, click OK to save your changes. Observe that your custom
Quick Access Toolbar now appears on the screen above or below the ribbon,
depending on the choice you have selected. Figure
2-21 shows our completed changes to the Quick Access Toolbar for this
specific database.
Note
You
might have noticed the <Separator> option in the list on the left. Adding
<Separator> to your custom Quick Access Toolbar places a small space below
the command currently selected in the list on the right. You can add as many
separators as you want to your custom Quick Access Toolbar to separate groups
of commands visually.
Figure 2-21. Our two
additional commands now appear on the Quick Access Toolbar for this database.
To remove an item from your custom
Quick Access Toolbar, reopen the Access Options dialog box with the Quick
Access Toolbar category selected again by clicking the arrow on the Quick
Access Toolbar and then clicking More Commands. To remove an item, select it in
the list on the right and click Remove, and Access removes it from your list of
commands. If you inadvertently remove a command that you wanted to keep, you
can click the Cancel button in the lower-right corner to discard all changes.
You can also find the command in the list on the left and add it back. Keep in
mind that you can remove commands for all databases, or for only the current
database.
If you want to restore the Quick
Access Toolbar for all databases to the default set of commands, select For All
Documents (Default) in the Customize Quick Access Toolbar list, click the Reset
button in the lower-right corner of the screen, and then click Reset Only Quick
Access Toolbar from the drop-down list. To remove all custom commands for the
current database, select the database path in the Customize Quick Access
Toolbar list, click Reset, and then click Reset Only Quick Access Toolbar.
Before removing any commands on the Quick Access Toolbar, Access displays the
warning message shown in Figure
2-22. If you click Yes to this Reset Customizations message, Access
resets the Quick Access Toolbar for this current database back to the defaults.
Figure 2-22. Access
asks you to confirm resetting the Quick Access Toolbar back to the default
commands.
Inside Out: Adding a Command to the Quick Access Toolbar with
Two Mouse Clicks
If
you notice that you are using a command on the ribbon quite often, Access 2010
provides a very quick and easy way to add this command to the Quick Access
Toolbar. To add a command on the ribbon to the Quick Access Toolbar,
right-click the command and click Add To Quick Access Toolbar. This adds the
command to the Quick Access Toolbar for all databases. Alternatively, you can
remove an item from your custom Quick Access Toolbar quickly by right-clicking
the command and clicking Remove From Quick Access Toolbar.
If you modify the Quick Access
Toolbar for all databases, you can export your customizations to a file that
can be imported to another computer running Access 2010. Click the
Import/Export button at the lower-right corner of the screen and then click Export
All Customizations, as shown in Figure
2-23. You can choose a location to save this customization file for
use on other computers. To import the Quick Access Toolbar customizations onto
another computer, open Access 2010 on the second computer, reopen the Access
Options dialog box with the Quick Access Toolbar category selected, click the
Import/Export button at the bottom of the screen, and then click Import
Customization File. Your custom Quick Access Toolbar options for all databases
created on the first computer now appear in the Access program installed on the
second computer.
Figure 2-23. You can
export and import your custom Quick Access Toolbar commands to other computers.