How to add a custom Ribbon tab using VBA?

Question

I am looking for a way to add a custom tab in the Excel ribbon which would carry a few buttons. I chanced on some resources addressing it via Google but all look dodgy and o

Answer 1

The answers on here are specific to using the custom UI Editor. I spent some time creating the interface without that wonderful program, so I am documenting the solution here to help anyone else decide if they need that custom UI editor or not.

I came across the following microsoft help webpage - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff861787.aspx. This shows how to set up the interface manually, but I had some trouble when pointing to my custom add-in code.

To get the buttons to work with your custom macros, setup the macro in your .xlam subs to be called as described in this SO answer - Calling an excel macro from the ribbon. Basically, you'll need to add that "control As IRibbonControl" paramter to any module pointed from your ribbon xml. Also, your ribbon xml should have the onAction="myaddin!mymodule.mysub" syntax to properly call any modules loaded by the add in.

Using those instructions I was able to create an excel add in (.xlam file) that has a custom tab loaded when my VBA gets loaded into Excel along with the add in. The buttons execute code from the add in and the custom tab uninstalls when I remove the add in.