Posts Tagged ‘CommandBars’

Excel 2016 crashes if COM add-in creates a command bar control in a built-in context menu

Today's blog is about a recent crash reported by our customer. Our research shows that the crash occurs if your VSTO add-in or COM add-in creates a command bar control on a built-in context menu. We reproduce the crash when customizing the Cells context menu in this way... Read the rest of this entry →

Customizing the Excel User Interface: What is and isn’t customizable

Anytime Excel runs into a business process, users discover they require more of Excel. They can have more too by extending Excel via its API. Today, I'll cover what you user interface customizations are available to you when developing Excel add-ins with Add-in Express... Read the rest of this entry →

Creating a custom ribbon for Outlook 2013, 2010 and toolbar for Outlook 2007, 2003 – C# sample

The Outlook UI provides a lot of customization options, but one thing almost all Outlook add-ins share is either a ribbon tab or a toolbar or two. The Ribbon UI was introduced in Office 2007 although only the Inspector windows actually used it. The Explorer window still used the traditional menus and toolbars from previous Outlook versions... Read the rest of this entry →

How to customize context / right click menu of Excel 2013, 2010 and lower: C# sample

Right-click menus of Microsoft Office applications are a very convenient option for the end-user to interact with the host application. And for us, COM add-in developers, creating a custom menu for our users could be just a piece of cake... Read the rest of this entry →

Creating add-ins for Outlook: custom ribbon & command bar in one project (C#, VB.NET)

Despite what some promulgate as software development best practices, I like to start my projects by sketching what I envision. I don't conduct interviews. I don't write requirements. I thumb my nose at all type-A project manager types and don't make a plan... Read the rest of this entry →

How to intercept clicking an Office Ribbon control or command bar button

There are three ways to invoke a command of an Office application: click a built-in Ribbon button (2007-2010); click a built-in CommandBar button (Office 2000-2003 and some Office 2007 applications) and press a keyboard shortcut... Read the rest of this entry →

Excel shapes events: getting notified about user actions

The Excel object model doesn't have any events purposed for manipulations with shapes. In this blog I demonstrate an approach to solving this problem... Read the rest of this entry →

Video: Create an Office shared add-in – connecting business logic to Office events

On Tuesday we published Part 3 of the end-to-end demo. Today, we have Part 4. In reality parts 3 and 4 can be taken together but we thought it's better to break them up a bit and provide a bit of a break. But we have momentum now so let's keep this train a-moving because Part 5 is almost ready for its debut as well.... Read the rest of this entry →

How to navigate through the Microsoft Office Command Bar system

There are 4 instances of the command bar button "Save" (Id=3) in Excel. Two of them are best known: a button on the Standard commandbar and an item in the File menu. The other two instances are buried in the command bar system... Read the rest of this entry →

How to handle Outlook item’s Reply event: replying from a context-menu

Let's consider the case then the user replies to an Outlook e-mail from the context menu. First off, you can reply to one item only; that item is selected or right-clicked in an explorer window or is opened in an inspector window.... Read the rest of this entry →

How to create a custom event when Excel calculation mode changes

You should be aware that no such event exists. Let's create it. In Excel 2007 - 2010, you can change the calculation mode using the buttons shown in the screenshot below... Read the rest of this entry →

Outlook and Word Toolbars mixed: problem and solution

Have you ever run into the issue when an Outlook toolbar created by your add-in shows up in Word? Or maybe, a Word toolbar gets displayed in Outlook? This article describes the issue and provides a workaround; the source code is supplied in VB.NET, C# and Delphi... Read the rest of this entry →

How to specify account for an outgoing Outlook message

How to specify account for an outgoing email message in Outlook 2000-2010?... Read the rest of this entry →

How to customize Office 2010 and 2007 Ribbon with your own tabs or controls

In today's post I'll demonstrate how you can insert your own ribbon tabs (for Office 2007-2010) and controls (for Office 2000-2003) before or after Office's built-in tabs or controls. I'll also show you how you can add an existing built-in Office control to your own ribbon tab... Read the rest of this entry →

100% version neutrality for your Office extensions

Finally, when you completed your add-in, there is no need to build separate setup programs for different versions of Office. Generating a setup program is as simple as right-clicking your project in the Visual Studio Solution Explorer and selecting Create Setup Project from the context menu... Read the rest of this entry →

Outlook context sensitivity: show custom UI for certain folders and items types

Add-in Express makes it possible to display your custom UI elements based on various Outlook components. Elements such as toolbars, toolbar controls, ribbon tabs, ribbon tab controls or Advanced Form Regions can be hidden or displayed based on what the user is doing in Outlook at any given moment... Read the rest of this entry →

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