First a little background. I worked extensively with Word VBA in Word 97 and Word 2000. I made use of custom toolbars quite a bit. They were great because they were available any time the template was accessed.
Fast-forward to 2005 when I changed jobs and started using Word 2003. My new position didn’t require a lot of Word customization, but I did create one Word template, using a custom toolbar.
When we switched to Word 2007, I saw that the custom toolbar became a new tab in the ribbon. I wrinkled my nose at that, but I accepted it. The template was already established, so I wasn’t worried about modifying it. I did, however, create an additional Word template with macros. After doing some research, I learned how to use VBA to add buttons to the ribbon. This was less than ideal, especially since I was basically telling Word to add the buttons on open and to remove the buttons on close. Okay, I guess I could live with that.
Now we are on Word 2010, and I’m thrilled to learn that the ribbon is customizable. I immediately went about to create a tab and a group with a dummy macro. Nice!
In my experiment, I learned that customizing the ribbon on my machine does not have an impact on how people see the template. Another user opening the template does not see the new tab. My vision reflecting the Word 97 method of customizing toolbars for other users fell flat.
So, my question is if there is a way to customize a ribbon tab that is available when another user opens a document based on that template. I’d rather not do this programmaticly.
Kevin
