Can I change the behavior of the Insert Table command in Word 2007?

Question

In Word 2007, the Ribbon Insert tab has a Tables group with one drop-down button (indicated by "Table").

The drop-down list contains various menu items, such as "Insert table ...", "Drawing table", etc. However, at the top of the drop-down list there is a 10x8 grid that you can use to quickly select the size of your new table with the mouse. (First question: what is this thing? !!).

I would like to override the default behavior, so that when the user "draws" the table using the widget mentioned above, I can change the paragraph style used in the table (and possibly do a different cleanup).

I know how to override the "Insert table ..." command, but I cannot figure out how to override the "widget" behavior. It can be done?

Answer 1

Before you start reading (because it will be long), I want to say that I did not solve this problem. However, in my attempts to solve and then get around this problem, I found a lot of things that I write down here, hoping that they will help someone find a solution.

When trying to determine what a 10x8 grid controls that can be used to insert a table, I discovered a macro specified in Word commands called "TableInsertGeneral".

This macro, according to Suzanne S. Barnhill, will restore the grid if this function ceases to function in earlier versions of Word ( Insert Drop Down Missing Table ). A macro, since it exists in Word 2007/2010, cannot be executed from the Run button of the macro dialog. Double-clicking on a command rejects the dialog box, but does nothing more open. I also tried to intercept its function by creating a VBA submenu called TableInsertGeneral, but the code that I placed in this sub did not execute when I accessed the grid. However, based on my research, I believe the TableInsertGeneral macro has some connection to display a 10x8 grid.

I also tried to solve the problem by changing the gallery of tables in the Word ribbon. Since I could not directly access the code that controlled the grid, I tried to hide the table of tables and then replace it with a rebuilt gallery that excluded the grid function (so that the paragraph style and other changes worked globally).

First I downloaded a few tools:

• User Interface Editor for Microsoft Office (for editing the feed: User Interface Editor )
• Office 2007 Control Identifiers (for identifying the names of various parts of the Ribbon: Office 2007 Office Identifiers in an Excel worksheet )
• Office 2007 Icon Gallery (for accessing internal icons in Word for posting in a rebuilt feed: Word 2007 Icon Gallery )

Using the User Interface Editor for Microsoft Office (which allows you to edit the customui.xml file inside a Word 2007 document or template without having to create folder structures or maintain relationships between xml files). I opened the template and saved this code in a file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui"> <ribbon> <tabs> <tab idMso="TabInsert"> <group idMso="GroupInsertTables" visible="false" /> <group id="CustomGroupInsertTables" label="Tables" insertBeforeMso="GroupInsertIllustrations"> <gallery id="CustomTableInsertGallery" label="Table" imageMso="TableInsertGallery" size="large" columns="1" rows="4" screentip="Table" supertip="Insert or draw a table into the document." keytip="T" onAction="RibbonControl.galleryOnAction" > <item id="GridMessage" label="Draw Table Via Grid Has Been Removed" imageMso="TablesGallery" supertip="Provides information on why this template has different Ribbon controls."/> <button idMso="TableInsertDialogWord" /> <button idMso="ConvertTextToTable" /> <button idMso="TableExcelSpreadsheetInsert" /> </gallery> </group> </tab> </tabs> </ribbon> </customUI> 

This successfully hid the source table of the tables and replaced it with some functions of the source table. The 10x8 grid disappeared, but I was unable to restore the Draw Table Toggle button and Quick Tables. As far as I can tell, the XML schema does not allow embedding any of them (which exist in the finished version of Word 2007) into the existing gallery. Since I do not like to remove functionality (even for this partial solution, which I thought would not be used), I added a button tied to the message box as the first element in the rebuilt gallery:

The code for connecting a new button “Draw a table through the grid removed” was placed in a module named RibbonControl:

 Sub GalleryOnAction(Control As IRibbonControl, selectedID As String, selectedIndex As Integer) If Documents.Count = 0 Then MsgBox "This control is disabled when there is no active document." Exit Sub End If Select Case Control.id Case "CustomTableInsertGallery" Select Case selectedIndex Case 0 MsgBox "Explain changes to Ribbon interface here." Case Else 'Do Nothing End Select End Select End Sub 

I do not expect anyone to use this partial solution, however, if it were possible to recover the two missing controls, this could be a good workaround. By the way, I adapted most of this from Greg Max's website:

Ribbon Setting

If you read this, thanks! And I wish you more success with your own efforts.