To customize the Ribbon of a Microsoft Office application, add a Ribbon (Visual Designer) or Ribbon (XML) item to an Office project.
Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and application-level projects for the following applications: Excel 2013 and Excel 2010; InfoPath 2013 and InfoPath 2010; Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010; PowerPoint 2013 and PowerPoint 2010; Project 2013 and Project 2010; Visio 2013 and Visio 2010; Word 2013 and Word 2010. For more information, see Features Available by Office Application and Project Type.
To add a Ribbon to a project
- On the Project Menu, click Add New Item. 
- In the Add New Item dialog box, select Ribbon (Visual Designer) or Ribbon (XML). For more information about these templates, see Ribbon Overview. 
- In the Name box, type a name for the Ribbon item. - Names cannot contain the following characters: - Pound (#) 
- Percent (%) 
- Ampersand (&) 
- Asterisk (*) 
- Vertical bar (|) 
- Backslash (\) 
- Colon (:) 
- Double quotation mark (") 
- Less than (<) 
- Greater than (>) 
- Question mark (?) 
- Forward slash (/) 
- Leading or trailing spaces (' ') 
- Names reserved for Windows or DOS such as ("nul", "aux", "con", "com1", "lpt1", and so on) 
 
- Click OK. 
The Ribbon item appears in Solution Explorer. For information about the next steps, see Ribbon Overview.
See Also
Tasks
Walkthrough: Creating a Custom Tab by Using the Ribbon Designer
Walkthrough: Creating a Custom Tab by Using Ribbon XML