1. Get to Know the Ribbon

If you skipped Office 2007 and are making the jump from Access 2003, the Microsoft’s Ribbon is a new feature and potential annoyance.  I know that when I first switched from Excel 2003 to Excel 2007, I hated the ribbon.  However over the years, I have found that it is actually a lot better than the old menu system once you become accustomed to it.  Of course the biggest problem in the transition is not knowing where anything is.  Luckily Microsoft has released an interactive reference guide to help you find the new location of commands in Access 2010.  You can get it here.

The most important tabs are Home, Create and Design.  Home is the….home of a lot of the common tasks and menu items found in other Office programs (think Cut, Copy, Paste, Text Formatting, Find/Replace).  Create is the starting point for all your new queries, tables, forms, and reports.  Design appears when you create a new objects and Access is smart enough to auto-select it after you create a new object.

2. Don’t like the Ribbon? Get it out of your way.

Simply Right Click the ribbon and select Minimize Ribbon to hide it and increase your work area in Access 2010.  You’ll still get to the ribbon, but it won’t always be displayed and taking up valuable screen real estate.

3. Customize the Ribbon

Right Click the ribbon and click the Customize Ribbon button to change it exactly to your liking.

4. The Quick Access Toolbar makes things Quick

Even when you get used to exactly where things are in the Ribbon, switching tabs to find menus and select them can require a lot more clicks than were needed in Access 2003.  Right click the Ribbon and select Show Quick Access Toolbar to display this small little shortcut of things.  You can right click the Quick Access Toolbar or the Ribbon and select Customize Quick Access to add shortcuts to all your frequent tasks.  We recommend adding things like Print, Save, Sync, Copy/Paste to the toolbar since they require 2 or more clicks and are very frequently used.  Sync is essential if you’re developing a web app, but you don’t have to take our recommendations – download our custom Quick Access Toolbar Right Here.

5. Don’t Miss the Quick View Change

You can quickly jump between Report View, Design View, Layout View and any other valid views by looking in the bottom right corner.  Each view is always just 1 click away!  You can also right click on any tab and change the view (2 clicks) rather than navigate the ribbon (3 Clicks) to change the view.