Keyboard Love - Use the Quick Access Bar for blazing fast keyboard entry

I am a keyboard fanatic! Don’t get me wrong, the mouse is everyones friend. But the keyboard is all about speed and efficiency in navigation. I have always trained myself to learn keyboard shortcuts in any program I use frequently. The small investment eventually yields a great deal of efficiency over the work month. It is also amazing how quickly the keyboard shortcuts become a habit. I don’t even think about them any more, they are just a natural extension of using the computer. (How often to you consciously think about it when you use ALT+TAB. Its instinctive after frequent use)

I recently did 2 small projects in Access 2007. I have always loved Access and 2007 is even better. It is much easier to format forms and reports and it is possible to do so fastly.

However, when working on forms or reports I find myself constantly switching between design and form or print preview mode. It seems like a lot of clicking to go between different views and to navigate the Ribbon for formatting and other features.

I thought to myself, it is time to learn the keyboard for Access 2007. In Office 2007 you can press the ALT key and you get a nifty list of tooltips that tell you what letters to press to select a feature in the ribbon:

However, to switch design views on the ribbon required pressing: ALT, H, W, and then one more key for the view you wanted. Ok, now this is faster than taking my hands of the keyboard and using the mouse. But pressing 4 keys sequentially is just too much work. It is like playing the game twister with your fingers.

Well I then discovered that the shortcuts on the Quick Access bar all get keyboard assignments as well. So I added my favorite form and report design commands to the quick access bar. Here you can see the shortcuts Access has assigned:

So now I only have to press ALT plus the key Access has assigned. In my case, either ALT+2, ALT+3, ALT+4 quickly move between my favorite views. Easy and cheap (well actually no extra cost).

Maybe there are even faster ways of navigating the Ribbon. If so let me know.