How to: Get Started Customizing the Ribbon

Applies to
The information in this topic applies only to the specified Visual Studio Tools for Office projects and versions of Microsoft Office. Project type Document-level projects Application-level projects Microsoft Office version Excel 2007 Word 2007 Outlook 2007 PowerPoint 2007 For more information, see Features Available by Application and Project Type.

To customize the Ribbon of a Microsoft Office application, add a Ribbon (Visual Designer) or Ribbon (XML) item to a Visual Studio Tools for Office project.

To add a Ribbon to a project

1. On the Project Menu, click Add New Item.

2. In the Add New Item dialog box, select Ribbon (Visual Designer) or Ribbon (XML). For more information about these templates, see Ribbon Overview.

3. 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)

4. 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

Concepts

Accessing the Ribbon at Run Time

Ribbon Designer

Ribbon XML