How to: Get Started Customizing the Ribbon
To customize the Ribbon of a Microsoft Office application, add a Ribbon (Visual Designer) or Ribbon (XML) item to an Office project.
Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and application-level projects for the following applications: Excel 2013 and Excel 2010; InfoPath 2013 and InfoPath 2010; Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010; PowerPoint 2013 and PowerPoint 2010; Project 2013 and Project 2010; Visio 2013 and Visio 2010; Word 2013 and Word 2010. For more information, see Features Available by Office Application and Project Type.
To add a Ribbon to a project
On the Project Menu, click Add New Item.
In the Add New Item dialog box, select Ribbon (Visual Designer) or Ribbon (XML). For more information about these templates, see Ribbon Overview.
In the Name box, type a name for the Ribbon item.
Names cannot contain the following characters:
Pound (#)
Percent (%)
Ampersand (&)
Asterisk (*)
Vertical bar (|)
Backslash (\)
Colon (:)
Double quotation mark (")
Less than (<)
Greater than (>)
Question mark (?)
Forward slash (/)
Leading or trailing spaces (' ')
Names reserved for Windows or DOS such as ("nul", "aux", "con", "com1", "lpt1", and so on)
Click OK.
The Ribbon item appears in Solution Explorer. For information about the next steps, see Ribbon Overview.
See Also
Tasks
Walkthrough: Creating a Custom Tab by Using the Ribbon Designer
Walkthrough: Creating a Custom Tab by Using Ribbon XML