RibbonX: Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon

Chapter 2. Accessing the UI Customization Layer

Before you can start exploring how to customize the Ribbon to get it the way you like it, you need to know how and where to place the code to do so. This chapter leads you there by discussing the file formats in Office 2007, and shows you how to crack your files open for customization.

The first section, "Accessing the Excel and Word Ribbon Customization Layers," discusses Excel and Word files, and begins by describing the fundamentals behind how the new Office 2007 files are structured. You learn how to access the Ribbon customization layer and store the required code. Once you've mastered this, you learn about a couple of handy tools you can use to make it much easier to set up, program, and debug Ribbon customizations. Rest assured that at this stage, you'll be provided with all the code you need, so don't worry about getting bogged down in learning to write it just yet.

The "Microsoft Access Customizations" section dives into storing RibbonX customizations in Microsoft Access, as this is very different from working with the other Office applications. A few different methods can be used to include Ribbon customizations in Access, and a brief introduction to each of them is covered. Again, all code is provided for you at this stage.

As you are preparing to work through the examples, we encourage you to download the companion files. The source code and files for this chapter can be found on the book's web site at www.wiley.com/go/ribbonx ...