How To Add The Developer Tab To The Ribbon In Microsoft Word And Excel

Adding the Developer Tab In Microsoft Word

The Developer tab that is in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel gives you access to several advanced features, such as form controls, macros, and other -ins. Microsoft hides the Developer tab by default. But you can easily enable the tab on the Word ribbon and on the Excel ribbon. So let us first see how to add the Developer tab to the Ribbon. 

Then we would show you some practical uses of the Developer tab and how you can make use of them to create more customized Microsoft Office documents.

Add the Developer Tab to the Ribbon tab in your Microsoft Office Applications

The steps are the same for adding the Developer tab to the Microsoft Word ribbon and to the Microsoft Excel ribbon tab. We would show our examples with Microsoft Word here, but you can follow the same steps for Microsoft Excel.

1. Go to File > Options. Click on Customize Ribbon in the left panel.
2. Or you can right-click on the ribbon and choose the Customize the Ribbon option.
3. ensure that the Main Tabs has been selected in the Customize the Ribbon dropdown list on the right side.
4. Then, click on the Developer box on the list to check it
5. Click OK to save your changes. 

What Can You Do With the Developer Tab in your Microsoft Office Applications?

You can use the Developer tab in Microsoft Office to do certain things such as creating a fillable form in Word, create and record macros to automate repetitive tasks and to protect a document from being edited by another person.

Create a Fillable Form by Using the Developer Tab of Microsoft Word

You can make use of Microsoft Word to create forms users can fill out on their computers. No paper needed. Maybe you want to get feedback about a meeting at your workplace. Or you might want to find out what kind of food people want at an event you’re hosting. 

Use the Controls section on the Developer tab in Word to add dropdown lists, checkboxes, text boxes, and even building blocks.

Create and Record Macros bt using the Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel Developer Tab

Macros in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel provide an easy way to automate repetitive tasks, saving yourself time. Make use of the Code section on the Developer tab to record a new macro in your Microsoft Word or Excel or to write custom macros using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

Restrict Editing and making modifications in a Document Using the Microsoft Word Developer Tab

The Protect section of the Developer tab in Microsoft Word allows you to restrict editing in Word documents.

When you collaborate on documents, you may want to prevent others from making any changes to the document except for adding comments. You can also allow others to only change certain parts of the document.

The Block Authors button is only made available when your document is saved in a shared workspace such as Microsoft SharePoint.

You can Work With XML Using the Microsoft Excel Developer Tab

XML or Extensible Markup Language is a markup language that lets you encode your document files in a format that is readable by machines, but also readable by humans. XML is a universal format that is used to create structured documents, especially for the web.

XML is like HTML, but you can create your own customized tags, data structures, and schemas. 

The XML section on the Developer tab in Microsoft Excel allows you to import XML data from other software and applications. And you can also export data from Excel to other applications.