Excel 2007 Add-Ins And The Ribbon Menu
Excel 2007’s new Ribbon menu takes a while to get used to. I’ve heard a lot of people say that their productivity dropped way down after switching to Office 2007, but eventually it rose up again to match the pre-2007 levels. Some people even say they’re more productive now.
I’m finally getting used to it myself, but there is still one thing that bugs me. The Ribbon thinks it knows what you want to do better than you do. When you select different items (ranges, charts, shapes, etc.) the Ribbon will automatically switch tabs in anticipation of what you want to do next. Even worse, Microsoft didn’t provide a way to pin tabs to force any given tab to stay selected.
The problem is even worse with Excel add-ins. Add-ins extend the functionality of Excel through both expanded features and convenience. If any add-ins exist when Excel 2007 loads, it creates a special Add-Ins tab. If you’re using the features of an add-in, Excel often gets all smart on you and switches the active tab. It can be a real pain, but luckily there’s a workaround.
QAT To The Rescue
The QAT is the Quick Access Toolbar. It’s a special toolbar that users can add custom buttons to so their favorite features are readily available. And it works for add-ins as well.
To include an Add-in on the QAT, first you need to select the Add-Ins tab. At the bottom of the Add-Ins tab is a label titled “Custom Toolbars”. Right-click on the label and a menu will popup allowing you to add it to the QAT, as shown in the picture below.
Selecting “Add Group to Quick Access Toolbar” will make the whole add-in toolbar a dropdown from the QAT, as shown below.
On other thing to note is the position of the QAT. In the first picture above, you can see that the QAT is above the Ribbon. In the second picture, it’s below the Ribbon. It’s a matter of personal preference, but if you like having favorite features even closer to the worksheet, you can change the position of the QAT. As shown in the third picture, below, just right-click on the QAT and select the option to show it below the Ribbon.
With the QAT below the Ribbon, you lose a little screen real estate, but you make up for it with added convenience and increased productivity.
30. July 2007 at 8:08 pm :
Hi,
This was an excellent article on the QAT
There is another option to the Ribbon interface that can be used along with the Ribbon or in place of the Ribbon.
ToolbarToggle (www.toolbartoggle.com) brings back the Office 2003 classic menus and toolbars. ToolbarToggle can be fully extended and customized with macros and autotext as well as you can save and restore multiple configurations.
Toolbartoggle seems to help power users who require floating and docking toolbars as well as anyone else who just prefers the Office 2003 menus and toolbars.
You get two versions for only $20 (Full and Lite) - that’s pretty inexpensive while people get used to Word, Excel and Powerpoint 2007.
Let us know what you think - would love to get your feedback.
30. July 2007 at 9:12 pm :
I’ve seen your Toolbar Toggle product before, and I think it’s a great way to capitalize on the ribbon change. Apparently, resistance isn’t futile.
22. October 2007 at 7:02 am :
Hey,
I came across your blog when looking for ways to customize the QAT. I’ve gotten as far as you; that is, I can import our custom toolbars from Word 2003 into 07 and pin them to the QAT. But what I’d really like to do is take the individual commands from the imported toolbar (in the Add-ins tab) and pin THOSE to the QAT. Have you figured out a way to do that?
22. October 2007 at 8:03 pm :
Hi Valerie,
I don’t think so. The QAT is considered hands-off for add-in developers, so an add-in couldn’t do it. And it’s considered good programming practice for add-in to declare a toolbar as temporary and destroy it on exit.
For FlowBreeze, the solution will be to create a custom tab with ribbon controls, along with a custom task pane (the side panels). I may need/decide to provide a separate 2007-only version. TDB…
6. December 2007 at 4:18 am :
Hi Guys (and Girls if any ! )
Only today the IT people installed offce 200 7 and i’m shokcked with my fully cusotmised Excel 2003 tool bars gone with the wind !
unfortunately i do not see an add-ins tab in Excel 2007
can some one help me how to get that 1st
pls pls help
Madhura
6. December 2007 at 10:51 am :
The add-ins tab will only show up if you have add-ins installed on your system. If you do, but you’re still not seeing the add-ins tab, go through steps 5 and 6 of the troubleshooting process here:
http://www.breezetree.com/flowcharting-software/help2/index.html?troubleshooting.htm
7. December 2007 at 2:44 am :
hi Nick
i think the issue is that my 2003 excel.xlb is not loading
when i opend up a different workbook with a tool bar linked to it, the add-in tab popped out with the custom tool bar
pl tell me how i can open excel.xlb from 2003 and make the tool bars show up since when i open it as a normal excel file, nothing happens
even i put it in the templates, xlstart folders still only the personal.xls loads but not the excel.xlb and the tool bars
let me know how i can come out of this mess !
thanks
madhura
7. December 2007 at 3:57 pm :
As far as I know, Excel 2007 will not recognize toolbar customizations in an xlb from earlier versions of Excel.
Excel 2007 uses the QAT instead, so you’ll probably just need to manually recreate any toolbar customizations as QAT shortcuts.
10. December 2007 at 8:36 pm :
Too bad !
Thanks a lot Nick
10. December 2007 at 10:12 pm :
madhura,
This page may offer some guidance, but I haven’t tried any of the the steps:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel2007.htm