custom tab in Ribbon Word 2007 1

[Trusts]

Hi,

I have been given a Word 2007 template (dotm) to update. When opened, or when a document is opened based on it, there is an extra tab on the ribbon, let's call it "Mystuff"

Clicking Mystuff changes the ribbon to display various custom items that lead to various functionality. I don't need to alter any VBA, but I do need to change the names seen on the Ribbon. For example, an item might be "Save Document" but now it needs to say "Save this really cool document"

This was a piece of cake in earlier versions of Word. How do I go about this in Word 2007.

Thanks!
KB

 

[xlhelp]

I have only heard about it. Haven't tried it.

The idea is to drag the icon to the Quick Access Toolbar; right Click on it; Select Properties and Change the Name.

Then drag it back.

Not sure about this. If you try it, let us know if it works or not.

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[TonyJollans]

Changes to the Ribbon at run time must be done with callbacks declared in the RibbonX xml. How did you create the "MyStuff" tab in the first place?

Enjoy,
Tony

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[Trusts]

xhelp - it did not work.

Tony - I didn't create it. It was given to me to change. I don't know how it got created. I've been playing around with how to make a new one but haven't gotten that far. Why MS would make this so much harder than before is beyond me.

 

[fumei]

Why MS would make this so much harder than before is beyond me. "

Because their focus groups and beta-testers indicated that this is what users wanted.







Not.

Gerry

 

[TonyJollans]

Ribbon customizations are done in Xml - an extra component is added to the file to hold them. Microsoft do not provide any special way to work with these customizations and you are left to do it any way you can. There is a sort of editor available here; it has been amended to work with Office 2010, except that last time I played with it I wasn't convinced it was working 100% for 2010 - as far as I know it still works for 2007 though.

If you know nothing of this stuff you have a bit of a learning curve to climb.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[strongm]

>Because their focus groups and beta-testers indicated that this is what users wanted.


Um ... sort of. Their focus groups found indications that IT support departments were spending large amounts of time fixing problems caused by users randomly customising and then wondering why things didn't work properly anymore or why their normal toolbars had vanished, or why buttons they were expecting to see were in different places ...

So Microsoft's solution was to remove the ability to customize (the Quick Access Toolbar frankly doesn't count) from typical end-users, thus saving corporations huge amounts of money and wasted time. Or not, since they somehow managed not to think it through properly.

Until they spotted their schoolboy error, and went back on their decision in Office 2010


>it has been amended to work with Office 2010

I thought Office 2010 already had ribbon customization built-in

 

[Trusts]

HI all, I fixed it and here is what the deal is:

You take your Word 2007 file, or template as my case had been. Rename it with a zip extension. Then open the zip file - you get a number of directories and files - what actually shows up depends on what was in the file in the first place.

For my particular need, I had to open a file named customIU.xml, found in the customIU directory. In that I made the name change that now shows up in the Ribbon. Wasn't hard at all if you know XML. The dumbest part was having to change the extension to .zip. If you didn't know that piece of you then it would be hopeless.

So I made my change, saved it and renamed the zip extension back to .dotm

Works fine but still what a whole lot of steps to change one single word on a button. Oh well.

- KB

 

[TonyJollans]

> I thought Office 2010 already had ribbon customization built-in

It has limited customization. You can set built-in components of it to be visible or not visible, and you can change the order of groups and tabs, but you can't add to it, or make changes like the OP wanted to.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[strongm]

>but you can't add to it

Er ... I can certainly add to existing ribbons in my copy of 2010. And I can rename the groups, and I can rename custom commands such as macros that I've put on a ribbon. But it is true that you can't modify the names of built-in commands (and you can't assign your own Alt key or custom icons ...)

 

[TonyJollans]

I stand corrected. It does appear to be more useful than I realised.

Enjoy,
Tony

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