Re: Customizing Word Ribbon Buttons (in 2007)

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Chertoff, Moshe [BWIIL]

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Oct 5, 2009, 12:52:55 PM10/5/09

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Shalom to all,

First, thanks to the following TCs for offering solutions:

· Paula R. Stern

· Jonathan Plutchok

· Yehuda Beinin

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Although we don't want to rely on using Word 2003, we recognize it as a workaround. Support for older versions (especially security considerations) of Word will cease in time. For those who don't understand why it might be considered a solution:

Toolbars and their buttons were easily customizable in Word 2003 and earlier versions.

1. Display the toolbar where the button you want to change appears.

2. On the Tools menu, click Customize.

3. When the Customize dialog box appears, right-click the button on the toolbar, and select the customization you want.

4. To change the text that appears, highlight it in the text window that appears in the drop-down menu, and replace it with your text.

Use of the Quick Access toolbar also doesn't cut it.

So, now to our solutions (I've not yet tested any of them)…

Yehuda suggested running a search for the terms "Customizing Word Ribbon." The result was that I found two good sources of information; The Word MVP Site and MSDN (Duh! Why didn't I think of that?)

1. The Word MVP Site (http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/Customization/CustomizeRibbon.htm) offers two interesting add-ins for Word 2007; Ribbon Customizer™ and ToolbarToggle™. As the site states, "NOTE: The menus and toolbars offered by the add-ins aren’t 100% identical in organization and functionality to those found in Office 2003, but they are remarkably close."

· Ribbon Customizer (http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer/index.php) — enables creating custom tabs and populate them with combinations of standard or custom groups of built-in controls. Because the starter version’s limited functionality includes the ability to display a version of the Office 2003 menus and toolbars, you might want to download the starter version even if you have no interest in ever purchasing the professional version.

· ToobarToggle (http://www.toolbartoggle.com) — ToolbarToggle might surprise you with how well it recreates 2003's toolbar customization functionality in Office 2007. The steps involved in creating new toolbars and adding or deleting controls are nearly identical to those required in earlier versions of Office.

2. MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501317(office.11).aspx) is the solution for anyone who doesn't want to get into 3^rd party solutions and can deal with XML. "Customizing the Ribbon uses both XML to define the structure of the Ribbon and programming procedures known as callbacks to give the Ribbon its functionality."

The "way to create a custom Ribbon that is more readily accessible is to create an Add-in that is added to Word 2007. This way, any document that you create in Word inherits the custom Ribbon. The easiest way to do this is to create the Add-in as a project in Microsoft Visual Studio. The Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system is a free application that contains a Ribbon template so you can add a customizable Ribbon to an Office project quickly."

All the best,

Moshe Chertoff

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