UI Designer

Getting there

Open a session document.
On the Appearance tab, in the Menus group, click UI Designer.

With the UI Designer, you can create new controls — including buttons, tabs, and menus — or modify existing controls on the Ribbon. Save your changes as a custom UI file (.xuml) that you can use with other session documents.

Design View

Displays a dynamic, graphical view of the Ribbon and tabs. Navigate to and select the controls you want to modify.

Insert Controls

Click the items you want to add to the Ribbon.

Tab	Adds a Ribbon tab on which you can place additional controls.
Group	Adds a container for controls.
Button	Adds a single button control.
Gallery	Adds a menu of buttons.
Split Button	Adds a button and a menu.
Button Group	Adds a button that contains three individual button controls, including split buttons and button menus (Galleries).
Built-ins	Adds a control for built-in features, such as Quick Keys and Office Tools.

New items appear on the far right end of the Ribbon. If a button or group is selected in the Design View, new buttons appear in the same group as the selection.

Arrange Controls

Move Up Move Down Move Left Move Right	Moves the selected control in the direction specified.
Delete	Removes the selected control from the Ribbon.
Select Parent	Selects the parent control, or container, for the selected child or group control.
	NOTE:To select a button group, click the bottom edge of the group, or, select one of its buttons, and then, under Arrange Controls, click Select Parent.

Review

Preview

Displays, in a separate window, the way the Ribbon will appear with the options you selected.

Settings

This area of the UI Designer displays, for the selected control, the settings that allow or require additional input.

The specific items shown will vary, depending on the control that is selected.

Show dialog launcher button	Select to add a dialog launcher button next to the label on a Group.
Identifier	Use to identify the control when programming with the Reflection API. NOTE:See "Dynamically Changing the User Interface" in the VBA Guide or the .NET API Guide.
Visible	Select to display the control. You can use the Reflection API to show or hide the control.
Enabled	Select to enable the control. You can use the Reflection API to enable or disable the control.
Action	Shows the action assigned to the control.
Select Action	Click to specify an action for the selected control in the Select Action dialog box.
Modify Subitems	Click to add subitems to a control. For example, if you add a gallery to a button group in the Subitems Collection Editor dialog box, click Modify Subitems to add buttons to the menu for that gallery.
Change settings	Select to allow changes to the label, image, tooltip, and description of the control. NOTE:Changes to these settings overwrite the default properties of the selected action.
Label	Specifies the text that appears on the control. NOTE:An ampersand (&) in front of a character in a label indicates that the character will function as a keyboard accelerator key.
Disable auto sizing	Specifies to disable resizing of a group and the controls it contains. When selected, the group is not resized when the Ribbon is resized.
Image	Shows the image that appears on the control. If you don't select an image, an orange circle with an exclamation point appears.
Select Image	Click to browse for a .PNG or .JPEG image to appear on the control.
Tooltip	Enter a heading that appears when the pointer is held over the control.
Description	Enter a description that appears (below the heading) when the pointer is held over the control.
Reset	Click to clear any of changes you've made and restore the default properties of the assigned action.

Video

Customizing the Ribbon (2:51)