Add align icon to quick access toolbar?
Jun 01, 2018
By
Nadia Zaid
Hi there,
I'm hoping someone can help me out. Until today, I had one align icon in my quick access toolbar. When I clicked this align icon there was a dropdown of all of the align options. Today, my quick access toolbar is empty and when I go to "arrange and align" to add it to the quick access toolbar it appears that I would now have to add each icon separately. I use the align function in my toolbar all the time, I'm hoping there's a way to add it back so that it is just the one button.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
9 Replies
If you're careful and have enough nerve, you can do it, but it's a lot like self surgery.
Go to C:/Users/Your Name/AppData/Roaming/Articulate/Storyline/Version#/workspace.xlm and make a backup of it. Depending on your version of Win, you may have to poke around a bit to find it.
Edit (NOT THE BACKUP, it's your only lifeline) and find this: lt;qat><item command="Save" visible="1" shortcut="0" /><item command="Undo" visible="1" shortcut="0" /><item command="Redo" visible="1" shortcut="0" /><item command="RibbonShapes" visible="1" shortcut="1" />
<item command="RibbonAlign" visible="1" shortcut="1" />
What you are looking for is "qat". What follows it are the items the QAT shows, in this case Save, Undo, Redo, Shapes, and the Main align button. The
part like this
is what puts the Align button on the qat. Copy that part into your file and save it.If you mess this up, SL may not start. If you are fairly lucky, it will delete this file and replace it with a generic one, and you will lose your custom settings. Not to worry, since you made a backup. Just copy the backup to the original location, and you're back where you started.
Oh yikes! Thanks for taking the time to share this. I will give it a try.
Hi Nadia,
I see from one of your other postings that you may be using Storyline 360, is that right?
If so, check out the Format tab. We added all of the alignment buttons right there on that tab, so now you don't have to click Arrange >> Align anymore.
Hey Alyssa,
I personally loved Arrange and Align being separate. Because Align was an option within Arrange, I could add it to the Quick Access Toolbar for stupid fast alignment of on-screen items. Alt > 4 > L left-aligned everything I selected, Alt > 4 > T aligned it to the top object, Alt > 4 > V distributed everything vertically (h for horizontal). I really wish this never changed; it's seriously negatively impacting my productivity. I'll take the risk customizing it thanks to Walt's advice, but this was not an ideal change for me.
I hear you, Jonathan. Thanks so much for that feedback.
In case you haven't tried adding the align buttons to the quick access toolbar yet, check out this quick demo I recorded for you.
Johnathan, Alyssa actually shows you how to create keyboard shortcuts in her above demo. (I thought I'd clarify because, based on her description, I didn't know this little gem was going to be included. :)
Thanks, Alyssa! I knew how to add items to the quick access toolbar but didn't know you could create keyboard short cuts.
Thanks for the demo Alyssa! I actually took the plunge based on Walt's advice and modified the workspace.xml file. Now I've got the entire Align menu on the Quick Access Toolbar. It was actually easier than I expected.
That's great, Jonathan! I'm glad Walt's advice worked for you!
Thank you - i was trying to add "align center" to my Quick Access Toolbar, which can't be done from the Home > Arrange buttons. Needed to come to the Format tab of the ribbon to add the actions (and no ability to straight edit (More Commands) like in PowerPoint. This should be an FAQ somewhere.
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