Get into customisation!
07 JULY 11
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We all have our own way that we like to do things, and now with Ribbon customisation you can make it even easier to do your day-to-day tasks in your Office applications.  Ribbon customisation allows you to create a personalised ribbon that is optimised to the way you work with the application.
 
The Ribbon is present in the following Office applications:
  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
  • Access
  • Outlook
The process to customise the Ribbon is the same in all of the above applications and it's as simple as customising your coffee at your favourite cafe!  Customisation is the ability to add, remove and relocate commands within an application.  Using customisation in Office 2010, you have the option to group your favourite or most frequently used commands in one location, remove seldom used commands, create custom tabs, or add commands to a custom group on an existing tab.
 
There are many different ways to customise and the great thing is that you get to choose whichever option suits you!
 
How to create your own tab
  1. Right click on the Ribbon area and select the "Customise the Ribbon" option.  Or you can go to File, Options and select "Customise the Ribbon.
  2. Now, add a new tab (or group, or both).
  3. Add your favourite commands to your new Ribbon.
  4. Click OK, and you have your sparkling new ribbon ready to go.


Once you're in the Customise Ribbon section you have several options.  For example, you can create a new tab, rename an existing tab, or drag and drop commands into a custom group.

 
  • Use New Tab button to create a new Ribbon tab.
  • Use New Group button to add a new group of commands to an existing or new Ribbon.
  • Rename button helps you to change the name of an existing custom group or tab.
  • Once you add a group / tab, you have to select it to add items to that group / tab.
  • You can choose the type of commands you want to add to your ribbon tab / group. You can also add any macros as well.
  • Now select the command you want to add to your group.
  • Click on the “Add” button to add the command to your Ribbon tab / group.
  • You can use the “Remove” button to remove any commands from custom tabs / groups.
  • Use the up / down arrow buttons to move your Ribbon tab / group up or down. (e.g. you can move your custom tab to the first position, ie before home tab).
For those of you that like to create your own keyboard shortcuts, this customisation screen is also the place that you can do that.
 
Share and share alike!
There may be other people in your team or department that carry out similar tasks that could benefit from your expert customisation.  You can very simply export your customisation file and send it along to your colleagues.


Further features of Ribbon customisation
As mentioned there are a range of options for customisation.  Below is a list of the major functionality that Ribbon customisation offers:
  • Creating custom tabs and custom groups.
  • Adding custom and built-in groups to both custom and built-in tabs.
  • Adding commands to custom groups. Note that you can drag and drop in the Options dialog to add and rearrange tabs, groups, and commands.
  • Renaming any tab, group, or command.
  • Changing an icon used for any group or command.
  • Hiding any tab (without deleting it), so you can reuse it later.
  • Removing built-in groups from built-in tabs.
  • Choosing to show only icons (without labels) for commands in a custom group. This allows you to fit a lot of commands into a single custom group.
  • Resetting single tabs back to the default state or resetting all customisations.
  • Exporting all customisations to a file that can be imported and used on other computers.
  • Use administrative policies to restrict customisations to the user interface.
  • Use administrative policies to control roaming of customisations, which allows user customisations to be available on any network computer upon log on.
  • Distribute customisations to multiple users by using operating scripts.