The Task Pane appears on the right-hand side of the Access window. (If you do not see the Task Pane, or closed it by accident, click View à Toolbars à Task Pane.)

You can think of the Task Pane as a general toolbar for the common tasks in Access. Note the small pull-down arrow to the right of the Task Pane title. Clicking that pull-down arrow will let you select which page of the Task Pane you want to view. Also note that the pages of the Task Pane are linked together. For example, if you have the ‘Getting Started’ page open and click Create a New File the Task Pane will automatically switch to the New File page in the Task Pane.

If you want to disable the Task Pane, click View à Toolbars and notice the small list that appears. The item marked ‘Task Pane’ will have a small check mark beside it. Click the Task Pane item to remove the checkmark, and thus disable the Task Pane. Take a moment to disable and then enable the Task Pane.