Easily Add a Ribbon into a WinForms Application

Style 2007

Style 2010

Style 2013

Background

The ribbon that is going to be used in this article is an open source project created by Jose Menendez Poo. However, the original author of the ribbon has stopped support of it. A group of fans of this ribbon re-host and continue to develop/enhance and support the ribbon.

The original ribbon creator has posted an article explaining what this ribbon is all about at [A Professional Ribbon You Will Use (Now with orb!)]. However, that article doesn't describe how to use it in your project. Therefore, this article will show how to use it.

• Old Site: http://ribbon.codeplex.com (by the original author, but has stopped support)
• Old Site 2: http://officeribbon.codeplex.com (re-host by fans of the ribbon) site shutdown
• New Site: https://github.com/RibbonWinForms/RibbonWinForms

How to Use this Ribbon Control

The ribbon class library can be added via Nuget. Right click your project and go to "Manage Nuget Packages..."

Search "RibbonWinForms" and install the nuget package.

Drag the ribbon control into the form.

Click "Add Tab".

Click "Add Panel".

Showing the commands of the "Panel":

Click the command and add the controls you want.

Changing the icon and button text label.

Adding the "Click" event.

Type the commands that you wish to do in the event block.

Now, try run the application.

Example of using RibbonForm style.

Replace the inheritance of "Form":

to "RibbonForm".

Note

Some behaviour of "RibbonForm" might not be working properly in some unknown circumstances. We recommended that you to perform the test in your environment before delivering your application into production.

Alternative Ribbon Control

Windows Ribbon Framework
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/windowsribbon/-uiplat-windowsribbon-entry 
Support Windows 7 onwards

Krypton WinForms components for .NET
https://github.com/ComponentFactory/Krypton

RibbonLib
https://github.com/ennerperez/RibbonLib 
https://www.nuget.org/packages/RibbonLib

Windows Ribbon for WinForms
https://github.com/ennerperez/RibbonLib 
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/arik/2010/11/08/windows-ribbon-for-winforms-v26-released/ 
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/55599/Windows-Ribbon-for-WinForms-Part-0-Table-of-Conten

Ribbon by Juan Pablo G.C.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18449/An-easy-way-to-add-a-Ribbon-Panel-Office-2007-styl 
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/19044/The-new-RibbonForm-RibbonRoundButton-and-FastMenu

History

• 8^th August, 2019: Publish Nuget Package, several bug fixes
• 12^th April, 2012: Initial version