How to: Customize the Ribbon UI by using an Office Open XML Formats File

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The Ribbon user interface (UI) in the 2007 release of Microsoft® Office suites offers users a flexible way to work with Office applications. Ribbon Extensibility (RibbonX) uses text-based, declarative XML markup that simplifies creating and customizing the Ribbon UI. This sample demonstrates how to add custom components to the Ribbon UI for a single document as opposed to application-level customizations. In the following steps, we add a custom tab, a custom group, and button to the existing Ribbon UI in Microsoft Office Word 2007. We also implement a callback procedure for the button that inserts a company name into the document.

  1. Create the customization file in any text editor and save the file with the name customUI.xml.
  2. Add the following XML markup to the file and then close and save the file:
    

    <customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui">
<ribbon>
<tabs>
<tab id="CustomTab" label="My Tab">
<group id="SampleGroup" label="Sample Group">
<button id="Button" label="Insert Company Name" size="large" onAction="ThisDocument.InsertCompanyName" />
</group >
</tab>
</tabs>
</ribbon>
</customUI>

    3. Create a folder on your desktop named **customUI** and copy the XML customization file to the folder. 4. Validate the XML markup with a custom schema.
    Aa434077.vs_note(en-us,office.12).gif  Note
    This step is optional.
    5. Create a document in Word 2007 and save it with the name **RibbonSample.docm**. 6. Open the Microsoft Visual Basic® Editor and add the following procedure to the ThisDocument code module and then close and save the document: 
      Sub InsertCompanyName(ByVal control As IRibbonControl)
   ' Inserts the specified text at the beginning of a range or selection.
   Dim MyText As String
   Dim MyRange As Object
   Set MyRange = ActiveDocument.Range
   MyText = "Microsoft Corporation"
   ' Range Example: Inserts text at the beginning
   ' of the active document
   MyRange.InsertBefore (MyText)
   ' Selection Example:
   'Selection.InsertBefore (MyText)
End Sub
    7. Add a **.zip** extension to the document file name and double-click to open the file. 8. Add the customization file to the container by dragging the customUI folder from the desktop to the Zip file. 9. Extract the **.rels** file to your desktop. A **\_rels** folder containing the .rels file is copied to your desktop. 10. Open the **.rels** file and add the following line between the last Relationship tag and the Relationships tag. This creates a relationship between the document file and the customization file: 
      <Relationship Id="someID" Type="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/relationships/ui/extensibility" Target="customUI/customUI.xml" />
    11. Close and save the file. 12. Add the \_rels folder back to the container file by dragging it from the desktop, overwriting the existing file. 13. Rename the document file to its original name by removing the *.zip* extension. 14. Open the document and notice that the Ribbon UI now displays the **My Tab** tab. 15. Click the tab and notice the **Sample Group** group with a button control. 16. Click the button and the company name is inserted into the document.

    See Also

    Overview of the Ribbon User Interface