QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

General

You might find it odd that the most common preferences appear in the middle of the preferences list. And it’s even stranger that QuickBooks selects the General preferences category the very first time you open the Preferences dialog box. What gives? Simple—the preference categories appear in alphabetical order.

The General settings can make your QuickBooks sessions either a breeze or an annoyance. Most of the General preferences appear on the My Preferences tab, but a few apply to everyone who logs into QuickBooks.

Tuning QuickBooks to Your Liking

The following settings on the My Preferences tab can help you fine-tune QuickBooks’ behavior:

• Pressing Enter moves between fields. In the Windows world, pressing the Enter key usually activates the default button in a dialog box, while the Tab key advances the cursor to the next field. If you press Enter in QuickBooks and find that your dialog box closes unexpectedly, this checkbox can provide some relief. When you turn it on, pressing Enter moves the cursor between fields in a dialog box rather than closing it. However, because Enter no longer closes dialog boxes, you have to press Ctrl+Enter or click a button to do so, such as OK, Record, Save & Close, or Save & New (depending on the dialog box).

• Automatically open drop-down lists when typing. This preference makes drop-down menus spring open as soon as you type a letter in a field. You can then click the entry you want, as shown in Figure 23-6.

  Figure 23-6. With the “Automatically ...