How do I deploy a custom word ribbon tab with buttons that call VBA code in dotm template files across my organization

David M. Peck 20 Reputation points
2024-05-21T18:03:25.7333333+00:00

I have some highly developed VBA Macro enabled templates that I need to deploy to my organization. for one computer, it is trivial to manually add a custom ribbon tab and buttons to that tab to call code in template files in the start up folder, but we have 700 employees, so the manual approach is not tenable. I have found a bewildering amount of contradictory information on the web. What is the recommended general approach to maintain a consistent custom ribbon tab for my organization that calls on dotm files?

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A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
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Office Development
Office: A suite of Microsoft productivity software that supports common business tasks, including word processing, email, presentations, and data management and analysis.Development: The process of researching, productizing, and refining new or existing technologies.
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  1. Charles Kenyon 2,781 Reputation points
    2024-05-22T20:24:41.93+00:00

    Start with Customize the Ribbon by Greg Maxey.

    I agree with John that you want to utilize both Workgroup Templates and the StartUp Folder.

    Any macros being called must be in attached or loaded template files at the time the call is made. Generally, my preference is to have the macros be in the template holding the Ribbon modifications. That simplifies things.

    Any macro outside of that template must have a unique name and be public.

    In addition to a custom ribbon tab or two, you can include QAT modifications in your template that will be available when it is loaded as a global template. .

    https://addbalance.com/word/QATmodification.htm#PageStart

    I keep such templates in a network location and update local copies (in the Startup Folder) as a part of the network login. I do the same with the Workgroup Templates using the old XCOPY DOS command.

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  1. John Korchok 5,156 Reputation points
    2024-05-21T18:29:05.64+00:00

    You can use Office's built-in Workgroup Templates feature, which makes a network share into an extra Templates folder. Here's my how-to article on how to set this up:

    https://www.brandwares.com/bestpractices/2019/01/shared-workgroup-templates/

    Microsoft has a technology called Group Policies that make it relatively easy for a network administrator to roll out changes to all Windows installations on a network.

    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/hh831791(v=ws.11)

    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/group-policy/group-policy-overview

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