Custom Ribbon in Excel

Question

Hi,

I have a VSTO add-in and have provided a Ribbon interface for the operations available through this add-in. I have tried using both the CustomUI Editor and the Visual Studio's Ribbon designer, but in both cases I could only create Groups that look like the 'Clipboard' group in the Home Tab of Excel. (That is either 1 large button or 3 small buttons in a column.) 

How can I add groups that look like the 'Font' and 'Alignment' groups of the Home Tab? Is it possible to create such groups (having only 2 buttons/rows in each column) in a custom tab?

---

Regards,
CS

Answer 1

Have a look at the buttonGroup control.

Answer 2

This is, of course, possible.  I recommend you get a copy of Robert Martin, Ken Puls, and Teresa Hennig's book "RibbonX - Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon" They actually show you how to do exactly this in one of the examples in the book.  You might be able to find a chapter or two online. 

---

HTH,

Eric

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito.

Explicit hoc totum,
Pro Christo da mihi potum.

Answer 3

Hi guys,

Thanks for your suggestions, but it seems that I put the question properly.
Consider the following XML for adding some controls in Ribbon.

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui">
 <ribbon>
  <tabs>
   <tab id="DemoTab" label="Demo" insertBeforeMso="TabHome">
    <group id="DemoGroup" label="Demo Group">
     <button id="button1" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 1"/>
     <button id="button2" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 2"/>
     <button id="button3" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 3"/>
     <button id="button4" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 4"/>
    </group>
   </tab>
  </tabs>
 </ribbon>
</customUI>

On adding the above XML to a workbook/document, they are placed in the Ribbon as seen in the image below

Here the first 3 buttons are placed in the first column of the Demo Group. This looks clumsy when I add many more controls in the same tab. ButtonGroup control also has the same behavior.

I want to know whether I can make the same set of buttons look like this

I hope this makes the question more clear.

---

Regards,
CS

Answer 4

Hi CS,

Thank you for posting in the MSDN Forum.

You can try the below code.

<tab id="DemoTab" label="Demo" insertBeforeMso="TabHome">
        <group id="DemoGroup" label="Demo Group">
          <button id="button1" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 1"/>
          <button id="button2" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 2"/>
          <labelControl id="label1" label=" "/>
          <button id="button3" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 3"/>
          <button id="button4" imageMso="HappyFace" label="Button 4"/>
          <labelControl id="label2" label=" "/>
        </group>
        </tab>

Hope it helps.

Best regards,

---

Quist Zhang [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 5

Thanks Quist,

What you suggest would result in having the buttons top aligned, with the third position vacant. I tried this earlier, but the results were not good enough. I would like to place the buttons just like the 'Wrap Text' and 'Merge & Center' buttons in the Alignment group of the Home tab, evenly distributed in the available space.

 

---

Regards,
CS

Answer 6

Why not try to make Buttons 3 and 4 with no image, and a label of " " ?

This ribbon formatting is really tricky and requires some creative thinking.

BTW: Doe anyone know the differences between Group and ButtonGroup ribbon objects ?

Answer 7

Hi CS,

As far as I'm concerned, that cannot be achieved. You can refer to the answer of this thread.

You can add a separator to make the 4 buttons divided into 2 columns however they will be top aligned still.

Regards,

---

Quist Zhang [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 8

BTW: Does anyone know the differences between Group and ButtonGroup ribbon objects ?

Referring to the Home tab Clipboard, Font, Alignment etc are all Groups.

There are several examples of ButtonGroup in each of the groups Font, Alignment & Number. Eg, the set of Bold, Italic & Underline are all buttons (without labels) in a ButtonGroup.

It ought to be possible to vertically space two rows of buttons equally between the allocated height of three rows, but if Cindy says it isn't I guess it's not!

Peter Thornton