MS Office - How to create a ribbon in Excel

In this post, we'll learn how to create a ribbon (i.e. a toolbar) in Microsoft Excel.

We'll create our custom ribbon for an Excel file, save the ribbon in the file so our users will have a nice and intuitive interface to work with our worksheet.

A ribbon is only useful if its buttons do something interesting. For a concrete example, MS Excel - Connect to a SQL Server database, run a query and get the results gives you the VBA behind a "Refresh data" button.

What we're going to build​

Here is the end result: our own tab, in Excel, with a button and an input field.

The button is wired to a VBA subroutine, so clicking it runs your code:

The whole thing is about fifteen lines of XML stored inside the workbook. Anyone opening your .xlsm file gets the ribbon; there's nothing to install on their machine.

Why it works​

• An .xlsx / .xlsm file is not a binary blob: it's a ZIP archive with files and folders inside. You can open one with 7-Zip and look around.
• Adding a ribbon means adding one file to that archive: a manifest called customUI14.xml, which describes the tabs, groups and controls in XML.
• When MS Office opens the workbook, it reads that manifest, draws the ribbon and, on each click, calls the VBA subroutine named in the control's onAction attribute. Your macro and your interface are thus stored in the same single file.

Download the editor for free​

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.

CustomOfficeUIEditor is an external tool (outside MS Office) which 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.

For this exercise; please extract all files and folders to your C:\tmp\ribbon folder (create it).

Create an empty file​

As a support for this blog post, please create a new, empty, file in Excel called Ribbon.xlsm in your C:\tmp\ribbon folder (or elsewhere).

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 open such files with the CustomOfficeUIEditor tool, you'll get an empty document.

Outlook is the exception: there, no XML is needed at all since the built-in Customize the Ribbon dialog can host a macro button, as done in Microsoft Outlook - VBA - Save emails as PDF.

Please start CustomOfficeUIEditor and open your Ribbon.xlsm file:

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 somewhere in the right pane and start to code your XML content.

Now, in the right pane, just copy/paste the XML source below:

<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>

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

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

Under the Hood — the manifest, tag by tag (skip this if you just want a ribbon)​

Time to understand what has happened...

The root customUI node and the namespace​

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

The manifest is an 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 file will define what attributes exist, 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 coded in VBA. The "on click event" should be defined in the onAction attribute as defined in the DTD. Microsoft maintains 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 indeed mandatory.

Define the ribbon​

The ribbon should be defined 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. Define it in a tab (its 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.

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">?
    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
    <ribbon>
        <!-- highlight-next-line -->
        <tabs>
            <!-- highlight-next-line -->
            <tab id="customTab" insertAfterMso="TabView" label="Tab">?
                <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                <group id="customGroup" label="Group">?
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    YOUR FEATURES HERE
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                </group>
                <!-- highlight-next-line -->
            </tab>
            <!-- highlight-next-line -->
        </tabs>
        <!-- highlight-next-line -->
    </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 names 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>
            <!-- highlight-next-line -->
            <tab id="TabHome">?
                <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                ADD A BUTTON TO TabHome?
            <!-- highlight-next-line -->
            </tab>
        </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 it Tab as caption.

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

Here is our added tab:

Implement our 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 it Group as name.

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

Our tab with its 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 two things: 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">
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    <button
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    id="customButton"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    label="Button"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    imageMso="HappyFace"?
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    size="large"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    onAction="OnButtonClicked" />?
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    <editBox
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    id="customEditBox"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    label="Edit Box"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    onChange="OnEditBoxTextChanged" />?
                </group>
            </tab>
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

The XML below will create a button

1. With an id initialized to customButton,
2. Its 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 your own),
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 in 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(control As IRibbonControl)
    MsgBox "You've clicked on the button", vbInformation
End Sub

To do this, in MS Excel, please press ALT-F11, in the Project explorer, right-click on the VBAProject (Ribbon.xlsm) entry (1), then select Insert (2) and Module (3).

A Module1 will be added and, in the right pane, please copy/paste the code given here above and save the file.

Now, you can close the Microsoft Visual Basic for Application window, go back to the well-known Excel window and click on the smiley button: you'll get the message box shown in the second screenshot at the top of this article.

And we can add other features, like 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" />?
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    <editBox
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    id="customEditBox"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    label="Edit Box"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    onChange="OnEditBoxTextChanged" />?
                </group>
            </tab>
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

Save, reopen the file, and your tab now looks like the very first screenshot of this article.

The list of properties depends on the type: for a button, we have an onAction attribute while it's an onChange for an editBox.

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 its 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'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"
                    <!-- highlight-next-line -->
                    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 Fluent User Interface Control Identifiers are maintained on the OfficeDev GitHub repository (current versions for all Office releases). You'll get Excel files, one file per 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 from the ImageMso GitHub repository (8,899 icons with a built-in Excel Add-In to browse them).

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 assigns 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.

Conclusion​

A workbook that used to be "open the VBA editor, find the macro, run it" now has a tab of its own with real buttons; and it's all stored in the .xlsm file, so it follows the workbook wherever it goes. The two things to remember: the manifest is customUI14.xml inside the archive, and each control points to a public VBA subroutine through onAction (or onChange).

Once your ribbon is in place, a common next step is to feed one of its controls (like a dropdown) with data coming straight from your worksheet — see MS Office - Load dropdown from Excel's range. And to give your buttons something worth clicking, MS Excel - Connect to a SQL Server database is a good place to continue.