HowTo: Create add-ins for Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 with a shared ribbon tab

Sometimes Microsoft Office developers may need to place the UIs of several add-ins on a single ribbon tab. Just imagine the following scenario: a user wants to install a few COM add-ins from the same vendor. Are they going to get a separate ribbon tab for each add-in’s UI? Frankly speaking, right after Office 2007 and 2010 releases I saw a bunch of add-ins that used separate tabs… But that wasn’t a proper and right solution. What is the Office Ribbon going to look like if a user installs a dozen add-ins?

The Add-in Express Developer Guide provides a tip on Sharing Ribbon controls across multiple add-ins where you can find the required settings for merging ribbon tabs from several Office add-ins into a single one. So, you may ask me now: why do I need to spend my time of reading this article if the documentation already covers the issue? The answer is simple: I would like to guide you in a step-by-step manner because this question is often asked on our forums and email.

How to create a shared ribbon tab for Excel add-ins

In the sample projects, which you can download at the end of the article, I developed two COM add-ins for Excel 2013, 2010 and 2007 with a shared tab and separate groups where the buttons for each add-in reside. For this example I used the latest version of Add-in Express for Office and .net. You can create a shared ribbon tab for any Office add-ins, e.g. Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and other apps in a similar manner.

1. Create a new COM add-in project and then add the ADXRibbonTab component to the add-in module. Next, set the Shared property of the just added component to true. This is the key property which lets the target host application to know that your ribbon tab is to be shared, i.e. that it belongs to the “shared” namespace.



2. Set the Namespace property of your add-in module. I used the ADXNamespace value:



3. Add a new ribbon group (ADXRibbonGroup control) to the just added ribbon tab and set up the following properties:

1. Name – adxRibbonGroupPrivate
2. Caption – Add-in #1
4. Add a new ribbon button (ADXRibbonButton control) to the just added ribbon group and set it up:
1. Name – adxRibbonButton
2. Caption – Hello world!
3. Size – Large
5. Add an event handler for the just added ribbon button. Please open the Properties window in Visual Studio and click the lightening icon to see the list of available events:



The event handler stub will be generated if you double click the cell next to the event name.

C# code example:

private void adxRibbonButton_OnClick(object sender, 
               IRibbonControl control, bool pressed)
{
    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(this.ToString(),
     "Add-in Express sample add-ins", MessageBoxButtons.OK ,
                                MessageBoxIcon.Information);
}
 
public override string ToString()
{
    return "The first COM add-in with a shared ribbon tab.";
}

Also I have added an image to the button. I will omit the steps on how to add images because they are common for all Add-in Express based add-ins and you can find the required settings in the sample Excel add-ins (C# and VB.NET) at the end of the article.

6. Add a new Add-in Express based add-in project to the solution. Set the Namespace property of the add-in module to the same value we used on step #2.
7. Add the ADXRibbonTab component to the add-in module and set its values like this:
1. Name – adxRibbonTabShared
2. Caption – Our shared tab
3. Id – copy the value of the ribbon tab’s Id property from my C# Excel add-in (in my example, this value equals to adxRibbonTab_73ba97036a984c86a8b1dce96f64c1b7).
8. Add a ribbon group control and set its properties:
1. Name – AdxRibbonGroupPrivate
2. Caption – Add-in #2
9. Add a ribbon button control to the ribbon group:
1. Name – AdxRibbonButton
2. Caption – Hi world!
3. Size – Large
10. Add an event handler for the Click event of the ribbon button like we did on step #5:
VB.NET code example:

Private Sub AdxRibbonButton_OnClick(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
                 ByVal control As AddinExpress.MSO.IRibbonControl, _
                 ByVal pressed As System.Boolean) Handles AdxRibbonButton.OnClick
    MsgBox(Me.ToString(), MsgBoxStyle.Information, "Add-in Express sample add-ins")
End Sub
 
Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
    Return "Our second COM add-in with a shared ribbon tab."
End Function

11. Now you can register both add-ins and see the following message boxes in Excel:



If you click the button of the second add-in, you will see a similar message:

Have a good week and see you next week ;-)

Available downloads:

These sample COM Add-ins were developed using Add-in Express for Office and .net:
C# Excel add-in with a shared tab
VB.NET Excel add-in with a shared tab