Visual Studio Images with Ribbons (XML)

Question

I'm making Office 2007 addins and I'm trying to use XML instead of the visual designer to customize the ribbon but for some reason I cant get an image to work with it... What exactly do you have to do‽ I added a resource png called Icon1 and tried this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui" onLoad="Ribbon_Load">
      <ribbon startFromScratch="false">
        <tabs>
          <tab id="TabToolss" label="Tools">
            <group id="MyGroup" label="My Group" visible="true">
              <button
                id="Button1"
                image="WordAddIn1.Properties.Resources.Icon1"
                onAction="Button1_Click"
                showImage="true"
                />
            </group>
          </tab>
        </tabs>
      </ribbon>
    </customUI>

No luck... not sure why. Even if I put the full file path in there it doesn't work.

I've never gotten it to work once, so maybe I'm just not doing it the way it was made to be done...

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '11 at 05:58

Very complicated solution... lucky to find it here

First add loadImage attribute to CustomUI tab,

Then to simplify things, add this internal class

internal class PictureConverter : AxHost
    {
        private PictureConverter() : base(String.Empty) { }

        static public stdole.IPictureDisp ImageToPictureDisp(Image image)
        {
            return (stdole.IPictureDisp)GetIPictureDispFromPicture(image);
        }

        static public stdole.IPictureDisp IconToPictureDisp(Icon icon)
        {
            return ImageToPictureDisp(icon.ToBitmap());
        }

        static public Image PictureDispToImage(stdole.IPictureDisp picture)
        {
            return GetPictureFromIPicture(picture);
        }
    }

Next add definition of loadImage function,

public IPictureDisp Ribbon_LoadImage(string imageName)
        {
            return PictureConverter.ImageToPictureDisp((Bitmap)Resources.ResourceManager.GetObject(imageName));
        }

+1 Thanks, quite exactly what I was looking for. Trying it with a Wordd-Addin it looks to me like the PictureConverter isnt't needed there - I could successfully return a Bitmap directly from my project resources. Given the information in [Converting Bitmaps to IPictureDisp](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rgregg/archive/2006/11/27/converting-bitmaps-to-ipicturedisp.aspx) I wonder whether the PictureConverter is needed only in Outlook-Addins. — Matthias, Oct 21 '11 at 12:24
+1 to Mark. Direct link to what MarkLator is referencing to is [Loading Images](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338202.aspx#OfficeCustomizingRibbonUIforDevelopers_Images) that is a sub topic in the link Mark provided. — nam, Apr 09 '16 at 23:34

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 23 '16 at 12:03

its a lot easier if you do the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui"onLoad="Ribbon_Load>
 <ribbon startFromScratch="false">
   <tabs>
     <tab id="TabToolss" label="Tools">
      <group id="MyGroup" label="My Group" visible="true">
       <button id="Button1" size="normal" getImage="Icon1"
        onAction="Button1_Click"
        showImage="true"/>
    </group>
  </tab>
 </tabs>
</ribbon>

in the Ribbon cs:

namespace Add_in
{
[ComVisible(true)]
public class MyRibbon : Office.IRibbonExtensibility
{
    private Office.IRibbonUI ribbon;

    public MyRibbon()
    {

    }

    public Bitmap Icon1(Office.IRibbonControl control)
    {
        return (Bitmap)Properties.Resources.ResourceManager.GetObject("Icon1");
    }

Visual Studio Images with Ribbons (XML)

2 Answers2