Microsoft has made available to sets of aids for helping users find their way around the Office 2007 Ribbon. The first set are the Online command reference guides. These are Flash applications that will show you the 2003 UI, allow you to click on the command you are looking for, and then show you where to find that particular command in Office 2007. You can find them using the follow links. There is no guide for Access.

Excel: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA101491511033.aspx

Outlook: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102221621033.aspx

PowerPoint: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA101490761033.aspx

Word: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100744321033.aspx

If you prefer a tabular form showing you where which 2003 command can be found in 2007, you can find buried in Help the links to the Ribbon mapping workbooks. Those Excel files are comprehensive and can be printed (they are not the smallest one either, the Word one is e.g. 3 MB):

Access: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102128601033.aspx

Excel: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102128621033.aspx

Outlook: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102128631033.aspx

PowerPoint: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102128641033.aspx

Word: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102128591033.aspx

I just posted another beta version of RibbonCustomizer V1.2. This one has added support to create the following items:

• menu
• box
• buttonGroup

If you don’t know what these RibbonX elements do, look at the Classic UI tabs. The Classic UI tabs are three rows of item. Each row is a separate box. The first row is only menus, while the second and third row contain buttons grouped together in button groups.

To add these items to your customizations, look in the same Custom Item list that you can find macros under.

Get the newest beta.

You can now use RibbonCustomizer to add macros to your Ribbon in Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word. The support in Outlook is flaky, so I might have to remove it in a later build.

If you want to give it a try, download the latest beta version.

Update: In my excitement about posting this, I forgot to mention how to actually use it

To add a macro, go into the Customize Ribbon dialog, then either create a new group or select an already created one. Switch to the Customize Group tab. On the right hand side, select Custom Items from the drop down, then pick Macro and click Add Command. After that, you have to provide the name of the macro and then its label.

RibbonCustomizer V1.1 will soon be available in German. The program has already been translated completely into German and is undergoing testing in German currently. The German Customize Ribbon dialog will look similar to what you can see in this screenshot:

How will you be able to switch RibbonCustomizer between English and German? You won’t and don’t have to. RibbonCustomizer will automatically use the same language as your Office User Interface. That means, if your User Interface language is German, RibbonCustomizer will be in German. Otherwise, it will be in English.

In case you didn’t know: Support for RibbonCustomizer is available in English and German. Even though this entire website is in English, I do speak German as well (German is actually my native language).

Besides adding German as UI language, I have also started working on V1.2. As previously announced, I will make frequent beta builds of V1.2 available. Please keep in mind though that beta builds are inherently unstable and have not undergone significant testing. I will try to make sure that the beta builds won’t crash right away, but I can’t guarantee anything. If you want a stable and reliable RibbonCustomizer, please stay with V1.1.

I posted the first beta build (1.2.2686.6056) on the beta program page today. This build already features the German UI language. If you only want RibbonCustomizer in German, please wait till V1.1 will be released with that. The first new feature in this beta build is that you can edit tab labels of Microsoft tabs.

Lastly, I wanted to point out that you can become an affiliate of pschmid.net Ltd. As affiliate, you offer RibbonCustomizer on your website and receive a commission whenever someone buys it via your site. The work for you is minimal (mainly place a link on your site) and you will not be responsible for support, but at the same time you can earn some money. If you are interested, please check our the Affiliate page.

Since I released RibbonCustomizer V1.1 on Saturday, two issues have appeared:

• Some customers were unable to run RibbonCustomizer. This issue only happened for customers who do not have all five supported Office applications (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word 2007) installed. RibbonCustomizer requires supporting components for all five applications to be installed. Unfortunately, the Office 2007 setup and RibbonCustomizer setup only installed the supporting components for the actually installed Office applications. Unfortunately, my beta testers and I all have those five applications installed (I run Office 2007 Ultimate e.g.). I would like to thank the three users, who brought the issue to my attention and endured the lengthy process of diagnosing this particular problem, a lot.
• Due to a problem in the setup program, Office did not recognize the digital signature of the add-in. I have no idea why one way of installing the properly signed add-in led Office to simply ignore the digital signature, while another way (seemingly doing the exact same things) made Office recognize it.

Both this issues have been fixed in the newest release of V1.1 (1.1.2676.42797). If you are not affected by either of these two issues, then there is no need for you to update to this newer release of V1.1.

To update, please remove all prior versions of RibbonCustomizer (including any V1.1), and install the newest one:

Download the latest V1.1 release