Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published December 2008

Customizing the A2009 Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access toolbar in A2009 (the tray of icons beside the big red A) seems redundant if you use the AutoCAD Classic workspace, but for those of you/us trying to self-indoctrinate ourselves into using the Ribbon, it's pretty cool and quite useful from a productivity standpoint.

I can't divulge what the "future" holds, but there are changes afoot that are not far away regarding the aforementioned interface, but in this exercise, I wanted to pass along the very simple process of adding commands to that toolbar. Specifically, the Save As command and any others you may want to add while the door's open.

Instructions to Add Commands to the Quick Access Toolbar

1. Right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar, then click Customize Quick Access Toolbar to open a collapsed view of the CUI which displays, primarily, just the Command List.
2. Scroll down in the Command List to Save As… (there are - strangely - two commands in the list that say ‘Save As', but only one has the three dots after it implying that a dialog box will open). You will also see the command string of ^C^C_saveas when you hover over the command in that list.

3. Drag the Save As… command onto the Quick Access toolbar and release it in the desired position.
4. Add as many other commands to that toolbar, then click OK to close the CUI and save your edits.

After you have added those commands to that Quick Access Toolbar, what do you do to modify their position? It's actually not very intuitive, and could be more complicated… but I'm not sure how.

Since the Quick Access Toolbar is Workspace-dependent, you will need to know what Workspace is current.

Instructions to Manage Commands on the Quick Access Toolbar

1. Identify your current workspace by clicking on the Workspace Switching button in the bottom right corner of the status bar. In the list displaying existing workspaces, your current workspace will have a check beside it.
2. Type CUI at the Command line, then press [Enter].
3. Under the listing of Workspaces, click on the workspace that is (current) to display the Workspace Contents area on the opposite side of the CUI.
4. Expand the Quick Access Toolbar node to display the commands on that toolbar.
5. Move the commands to the desired location, then click OK to apply and save the changes.

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