Converting 2003 template with toolbar to 2007

[gharding]

I have a Word 2003 template with an attached toolbar containing buttons to apply styles, insert autotext and run macros. I now need to convert this template to Word 2007. What is the best way to replicate the Word 2003 toolbar using the Office 2007 interface? With many thanks in advance for any help.

[pingdat]

It may not be the "best" way, but I found a fun little loophole in 2007 that let me create a "pseudo" toolbar -- I wrote about it in a post here in early March, entitled "Custom Toolbars - Word 2007".

[jscher2000]

I wrote about it in a post here in early March, entitled "Custom Toolbars - Word 2007".

If you can easily find that post, click the post number at the right end of the Posted date bar, and you should get a link to the post that you can paste here for quick reference.

[PamCaswell]

I have a Word 2003 template with an attached toolbar containing buttons to apply styles, insert autotext and run macros. I now need to convert this template to Word 2007. What is the best way to replicate the Word 2003 toolbar using the Office 2007 interface? With many thanks in advance for any help.

One of the better things you can do is make use of the styles gallery and possibly styles sets.

Pam

[Gary Frieder]

It may not be the "best" way, but I found a fun little loophole in 2007 that let me create a "pseudo" toolbar -- I wrote about it in a post here in early March, entitled "Custom Toolbars - Word 2007".

I seem to recall that post too, but can't find it - so as Jefferson said, please provide a link back to it if you can find it. If I recall right, the loophole had to do with customizing your QAT to include a command for something like "Custom Toolbars". That would be a good trick for an individual user who needs access to a custom toolbar from a pre-2007 template, but would not be a handy solution if you need to make it accessible to multiple users of a pre-2007 template.

Another workaround I've used a few times is to create a non-modal userform, that mimics the appearance and function of a toolbar - this is pretty simple to do, but is only suitable for replacing very simple toolbars that don't contain dropdowns and multiple levels.

Unfortunately, customizing the Ribbon in Word 2007 takes some prograrmming ability - if you do want to look into doing this yourself, the best resource I found is: RibbonX - Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon, by Robert Martin, Ken Puls and Teresa Hennig, published by Wiley.

Another thing that's unfortunate about the need to learn a special programming technique, just to customize the Ribbon in Word 2007, is that apparently in Offfice 2010 the Ribbon is customizable manually via the user interface. This means that Office 2007 is a sort of orphan version in this respect. Going forward, it might be better to jump to Office 2010 rather than use 2007, if you anticipate needing to do much Ribbon customization.

Gary

[janbphd]

There's actually a way to import a custom toolbar from Word 2003 (or another version) into Word 2007 and add it as a drop-down to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT). MVP Graham Mayor has a post on his site about it, which you can find here:

http://www.gmayor.com/Toolbars_in_word_2007.htm

I followed the second procedure mentioned in the article (not the Registry hack) last year when I was helping a client migrate from WordPerfect and Word 2003 to Word 2007, but I haven't done it recently so my recollection isn't fresh. (And at the moment I'm working mainly with Word 2010 because of my book project.) But I do remember that it worked fine.

Hope the link is helpful.

Jan

[pingdat]

a link to the post

This it? "Custom Toolbars - Word 2007," Posted 2010-03-02 22:44: "This thread's tiny URL: http://bro.ws/772844L"

Summary of that post: Custom toolbars from 2003 templates attached as globals seem to show up in the Add-Ins tab.

There is also a QAT-addable command that displays said old 2003 customized toolbars. Both the Add-Ins tab and the QAT button are pretty garbled in appearance, unless you still have 2003 available on another machine, where you can tinker around with your 2003 toolbars 'til you get things lined up like you want, which is a little tedious, actually. But worth it for nostalgia's sake if nothing else. I'm very fond of some of those modified button images.

Garbled-looking appearance or no, this (2003 templates as global addins in 2007) is useful as a quick fix to losing your beloved 2003 macros the day they convert you to 2007 (and also to losing the ability to modify button images) until one has time to rebuild within the confines of 2007.

[jscher2000]

This it? "Custom Toolbars - Word 2007," Posted 2010-03-02 22:44: "This thread's tiny URL: http://bro.ws/772844L"

Thanks! (For some reason, the new search engine doesn't find it.)

[gharding]

Thank you very much to everybody who responded to my query. I've already come to the conclusion that some of what I need can be done with Styles and Style Sets. I'm going to be working on this template (and others) over the next few weeks, so will post any ideas I come up with. Thanks again.