custom ribbon not appearing in outlook when when running a build in vs

20
votes

I followed this tutorial, but when I build then run my project in visual studio a ribbon tab does not appear. I'm using outlook 2010 if that helps.

6
outlookvstoadd-inribbonoutlook-addin
What Ribbon type (XML or Designer) are you creating? The link you provided is a tutorial on Custom Task Pane integration with Ribbon. You should refer to Ribbon Overview for a Ribbon walkthrough first. – SliverNinja - MSFT
I'm using the ribbon designer. The tutorial still walks you through the ribbon creating process though, in the same way the ribbon walk through does, I believe. Is there any code you have to add the the thisaddin classin order for it to show up? – xxyyxx
Did any error messages come out when you building the project? Or it simply just didnt appear? – woodykiddy
You need to provide more details on what code you have tried etc. in order to receive useful help. – Olle Sjögren
Possible duplicate stackoverflow.com/questions/9300526/… – mas_oz2k1

6 Answers

76
votes

Turns out you need to set the ribbontype property to Microsoft.Outlook.Explorer for it to show up. This is not the default value for that field, and no msdn tutorial seems to tell you to make that change.

6
votes

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb398246.aspx

I used this link on MSDN to fix the error. Simply says that you need to set the RibbonType property for which occurrences you want the ribbon visible/usable.

4
votes

This can also happen if your code previously used the Ribbon XML mechanism before switching to the Ribbon Designer mechanism, and you have inadvertently left a CreateRibbonExtensibilityObject override in place:

protected override Microsoft.Office.Core.IRibbonExtensibility CreateRibbonExtensibilityObject()
{
  return new MyRibbon(); 
}

Once you remove this override, your Ribbon Designer customizations will load as expected.

3
votes

Old post but it didn't give me an answer. In my case the add In was simply not showing anymore after some development time for no explicit reason.

The solution was to re-enable the AddIn in Excel. It probably happened one of the time Excel was asking me "Excel is having trouble with this AddIn, disable it ?" that appeared sometimes when deploying (F5).

To reenable it go to Excel -> File -> options -> AddIns

3
votes

You have to select the correct ribbontype property, if you are mapping your ribbon to new mail compose tab then you have to select Microsoft.Outlook.Explorer.Compose, if you are mapping to reading mail then you have to select Microsoft.Outlook.Explorer.Read and so on.

1
votes

If previously you run the solution resulting in an error, an office application may still run hidden and prevent showing the Add-In. Stop VisualStudio, check taskmanager for orphan Office processes, kill these.