MS Office - How to create a ribbon in Excel

This documentation will explain how to add / edit a custom ribbon in an Excel file

• Get the editor
• Add a ribbon in MS Office
  • Add a ribbon
  • Manifest analysis
    • The root customUI node and the namespace
      • Define the ribbon
    • Define the tab
      • Define the ribbon
    • Add features
• Edit a ribbon
• List of objects
• Find images
• Assign callbacks

Get the editor

To be able to "easily" (in a not WYSIWYG interface) create a ribbon in MS Office, I'm using a very old tool called CustomOfficeUIEditor. Until now, I've not found any other free tool for doing this.

The tool can be downloaded from https://bettersolutions.com/vba/ribbon/custom-ui-editor-download.htm.

For this purpose, I've taken a copy of the software, which can be downloaded here

CustomOfficeUIEditor is an external tool (outside MS Office) who can open an Office file and add the needed files to create a ribbon. It's possible to do this without an editor, for instance by using a software like 7-Zip since a .xlsx / .xlsm file is an archive with files and folders.

Add a ribbon in MS Office

The CustomOfficeUIEditor tool isn't a user-friendly tool: you'll need to type yourself the XML of the ribbon. That XML is also called "the manifest file".

By default, a standard MS Office document doesn't contain any ribbon so, when you'll open such files with the CustomOfficeUIEditor tool, you'll get an empty document.

Here is a very small XML for creating a ribbon with a button and an edit box:

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
    <ribbon>
        <tabs>
             <tab id="customTab" insertAfterMso="TabView" label="Tab">
                <group id="customGroup" label="Group">
                    <button
                        id="customButton"
                        label="Button"
                        imageMso="HappyFace"
                        size="large"
                        onAction="OnButtonClicked" />
                    <editBox
                        id="customEditBox"
                        label="Edit Box"
                        onChange="OnEditBoxTextChanged" />
                </group>
            </tab>
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

Add a ribbon

Once you've installed CustomOfficeUIEditor, just start the interface by double-clicking on the executable. You'll get a screen like this:

A very simplified interface where you'll click on the File option to open your document.

Open any existing Excel workbook (or just create an empty one for the exercice).

When using the editor, the file itself can't be opened in Excel! Imagine the following situation: the workbook is opened both in the editor and in Excel. You make a lot of changes in Excel, switch to the editor and change the manifest. By saving the file in the editor, you'll lose every change made in Excel so... be careful.

The first time, you'll need to add a new ribbon: click on the Insert menu and select Office 2010 Custom UI Part.

You'll then obtain a screen like this:

When customUI14.xml is selected (like illustrated above), click in the right pane and start to code your XML content.

Before saving your file, be sure to click on the Validate button so a check is made to verify the quality of the content.

In the example here below, you can see that an error is displayed telling that an attribute ID (in uppercase) has been found and that this name isn't declared. Indeed, the correct spelling is id (in lowercase). XML is a case-sensitive language and is terribly strict, no syntax errors will be tolerated

When the ribbon is correct, save the file and open it in Excel. If everything goes fine, you'll obtain this:

Manifest analysis

Time to understand what has happens...

The root customUI node and the namespace

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">

The manifest is a XML content and should be valid. You'll need to define your content into a <customUI> node (mandatory) and you'll need to specify the xmlns (for namespace) attribute (mandatory).

The [namespace]{#namespace} file will define what attributes exists, are mandatory or not, for each node type. The referred URL is the Document Type Definition (aka DTD).

For instance, when the user will click on the button of your ribbon, you'll wish to be able to capture the click and start a subroutine that you've code in VBA. The "on click event" should be defined in the onAction attribute as defined in the DTD. Microsoft maintain the documentation here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd909370(v=office.12).aspx.

So, if you know that the attribute is onAction you can then add your own subroutine by typing something like onAction="OnButtonClicked".

The job of the DTD is to make sure that the syntax of your manifest is correct; therefore, the attribute xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui" is well mandatory.

Define the ribbon

The ribbon should define inside the <ribbon> node but not immediately since a ribbon is, in fact, always defined in a tab.

Below we can see the standard ribbon of Excel and you can see a lot of tabs: File, Insert, Page layout, Formulas, Data, Review, View, ...

Each tab comes with features (buttons, checkboxes, ...). For the Insert tab, we've first a group of three buttons into a group called Tables:

So, a ribbon should be:

1. Defined in a tab (his own tab or an existing one)
2. Add features in one or more groups (own groups or existing ones)

Below, our manifest now, with the definition of the ribbon. Lines starting with a + are the ones we've added. The + sign is here only to put in evidence the lines; the sign is not valid so don't copy/paste in your ribbon.

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
+    <ribbon>
+        <tabs>
+             <tab id="customTab" insertAfterMso="TabView" label="Tab">
+                <group id="customGroup" label="Group">
+                    YOUR FEATURES HERE
+                </group>
+        </tabs>
+    </ribbon>
</customUI>

Define the tab

You'll need to give an identifier to the tab (in the attribute called id): your own code for a new tab or the id of an existing tab.

The standard name are:

• TabHome
• TabInsert
• TabPageLayoutExcel
• TabFormulas
• TabData
• TabReview
• TabView
• TabDeveloper

So, if you want to add a button to the Home tab, just use TabHome as value for the id, f.i.,

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
    <ribbon>
        <tabs>
             <tab id="TabHome">
                ADD A BUTTON TO TabHome
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

The XML below will, in one line,

1. Create a new tab since the id customTab is not an existing id,
2. Put the new tab after the existing View tab (use insertBeforeMso to add the tab before),
3. And give him Tab as caption.

<tab id="customTab" insertAfterMso="TabView" label="Tab">

Here is our added tab:

Define the ribbon

Inside the <tab> declaration, you need to define at least one <group>. And here too, you'll to define the identifier: an existing one for, f.i., adding a button in an existing group or a new one to create a new group.

The XML below will:

1. Create a new group since the id is a new one (customGroup),
2. And give him Group as name.

<group id="customGroup" label="Group">

Our tab with his group:

As you can see here above, just adding a group isn't enough, you'll need to define which features (buttons, checkboxes, ...) should be added in the group.

Add features

The XML here below will add to things: a button and an edit box.

Lines starting with a + are the ones we've added. The + sign is here only to put in evidence the lines; the sign is not valid so don't copy/paste in your ribbon.

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
    <ribbon>
        <tabs>
             <tab id="customTab" insertAfterMso="TabView" label="Tab">
                <group id="customGroup" label="Group">
+                    <button
+                        id="customButton"
+                        label="Button"
+                        imageMso="HappyFace"
+                        size="large"
+                        onAction="OnButtonClicked" />
+                    <editBox
+                        id="customEditBox"
+                        label="Edit Box"
+                        onChange="OnEditBoxTextChanged" />
                </group>
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

The XML below will create a button

1. With an id initialized to customButton,
2. His label (the text that is displayed under the button) set to Button,
3. Use the HappyFace standard image (imageMso is, indeed, the way to reuse a standard image while image allows you to define yours owns),
4. The size of the button will be large (a big button),
5. The action assigned will be the VBA function called OnButtonClicked.

<button
    id="customButton"
    label="Button"
    imageMso="HappyFace"
    size="large"
    onAction="OnButtonClicked" />

This will result into this:

OnButtonClicked is the VBA callback: to make it work, add a module in your Excel file, create a subroutine like this:

Public Sub OnButtonClicked
    Msgbox "You've clicked on the button", vbInformation
End Sub

And we can add other features, like an edit box:

<editBox
    id="customEditBox"
    label="Edit Box"
    onChange="OnEditBoxTextChanged" />

As you can see here above, the list of properties depends on the type: for a button, we've a onAction attribute while it's an onChange for an editBox.

Edit a ribbon

The best way to edit a ribbon is, for sure, to use CustomOfficeUIEditor but, for instance, if you don't have the tool installed on your computer but well 7-Zip, you can edit the ribbon with 7-Zip!

The MS Office file format is, in fact, an archive. Just rename the file's extension from .xlsx to .zip if you want to verify this assertion.

So, you can start the 7-Zip interface and open a .xlsx file where a ribbon has been created.

You'll see a folder called customUI and, there, a file called customUI14.xml (remember, that was the name of our inserted ribbon). By editing that .xml file within 7-Zip (a text editor will be opened), you can see the content and update it. By saving the file from within the editor, 7-Zip will compress it and add the file to the original MS Office file.

List of objects

As exhaustively defined in the ribbon's namespace, here is the list of valid objects:

• box,
• button,
• buttonGroup,
• checkBox,
• control,
• comboBox,
• dropDown,
• dynamicMenu,
• editBox,
• gallery,
• labelControl,
• menu,
• splitButton and
• toggleButton

Be careful: XML is case sensitive, editBox is the only valid syntax, editbox or EditBox aren't.

Each object comes with this own attributes, some are mandatory while the others are optional.

Find images

By adding a button f.i., you'll assign an image to it.

You can use a personal image like the logo of BOSA (in that case, you'll need to import the image in the CustomOfficeUIEditor application and use the image attribute).

You'll most probably use an existing, standard, image. This can be done by using the imageMso attribute and telling Office which image to use; f.i. AddFolderToFavorites:

The manifest is this one:

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
    <ribbon>
        <tabs>
            <tab idMso="TabHome" visible="false" />
             <tab id="customTab" insertAfterMso="TabView" label="Tab">
                <group id="customGroup" label="Group">
                    <button
                        id="customButton"
                        label="Button"
                        imageMso="AddFolderToFavorites"
                        size="large"
                        onAction="OnButtonClicked" />
                </group>
            </tab>
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

But ... how to retrieve the list of images?

Microsoft maintains Excel files with the list of existing IDs that can be used as icons in our ribbon. The "Office 2010 Help Files: Office Fluent User Interface Control Identifiers" can be downloaded here. You'll get a lot of Excel files, on file by application (Access, Excel, Outlook, ...).

This will give the list of existing IDs in plain text but you'll not see the associated images.

You can download all images (as PNG) for MS Office 2010 or 2013 here (see links in Chapter 2 Download).

An offline version for Office 2010 is here and here for Office 2013.

Assign callbacks

This term means: which code (VBA in this case) should be fired when an event is raised.

When the user clicks on a button of the ribbon which subroutine should be called?

The XML code below assign the OnButtonClicked subroutine to the onAction event of the button.

<button
    id="customButton"
    label="Button"
    imageMso="AddFolderToFavorites"
    size="large"
    onAction="OnButtonClicked" />

So, if we wish to catch that event, we'll need to add a public subroutine in our Excel file, that subroutine can be placed in any module, should be public and should have OnButtonClicked as name.

But... depending on the callbacks (click, change, toggle state, change, ...), the definition of the subroutine is not the same.

For a button, the VBA should be something like:

Public Sub OnButtonClicked(control As IRibbonControl)
    ' YOUR CODE
End Sub

For an edit box and the onChange event, the callback is different:

<editBox
    id="customEditBox"
    label="Edit Box"
    onChange="OnEditBoxTextChanged" />

Public Sub OnEditBoxTextChanged(control As IRibbonControl, sText As String)
    ' YOUR CODE
End Sub

The declaration of callbacks can be found on the official site : How can I determine the correct signatures for each callback procedure?. Pay attention to the Signatures columns; you need to look for VBA.