How to Export and Import Microsoft Office Ribbon Customizations
The Microsoft Office ribbon is highly customizable for the settings you need. Here’s how to export those settings and import them back into Office apps on a new computer.
The Microsoft Office ribbon can be customized to include the features you use most. In fact, it can be heavily customized with different commands. With so many customizations, it can be annoying if you move to a new PC and have to go through and re-customize everything. Luckily Office allows you to export your ribbon menu settings and import them back on a different system. Here’s how.
Export Ribbon Customizations
To get started, open an Office app (for this article I am using Word) and go to File > Options.
When the Word Options page opens up click on Customize Ribbon from the menu on the left. Under the “Customize the Ribbon” section on the right, click the Import/Export dropdown menu and choose Export all customizations.
Then you will be prompted to save the ribbon customization file in a secure location on your computer. Give it a recognizable name that will allow you to find it in the future and click Save.
Now that the customization file has been created and stored you can use it to import those settings on another computer. You can now pop the file on a flash drive or put it in OneDrive or network location and import the settings to another Office instance.
Import Ribbon Customizations
On the new computer launch an app like Word. Then head to File > Options.
When the Word Options page opens, click the Customization Ribbon from the menu on the left. Then under the “Customize the Ribbon” section on the right click the Import/Export dropdown menu and select Import customization file.
Then navigate to the location of your saved .exportedUI file. Highlight it and click the Open button.
A verification message will pop up: “Replace all existing Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar customizations for this program?” Click the Yes button.
That’s all there is to it! Your customizations will be replaced on the existing ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar.
Note: In this example, I used Microsoft Word. But you will need to do this for each of the Office suite applications like Excel and PowerPoint, for example. If you heavily customize the Office ribbon this makes it much easier to move between machines. You won’t need to reconfigure the Office ribbon each time.
