Author Topic: Add tabbed documents to MS Office (Read 70,824 times)

CWuestefeld · « **on:** August 26, 2009, 04:52 PM »

I think this is a must-have for Microsoft Office users. I hate the way that having multiple documents open pollutes the Windows taskbar, and makes it difficult to toggle between docs (you can only use the View/Switch Windows menu, which doesn't work very well).

This Office Addin, OfficeTab, makes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint function like your favorite tabbed browser.
Link to tool's page: http://hi.baidu.com/officecm/blog/item/19de9c6dcf6276f2431694b0.html
(Link to page translated to English)

(by way of ghacks -- thanks, guys!)

edbro · « **Reply #1 on:** August 26, 2009, 05:15 PM »

Make sure you read the EULA carefully. I forget the exact wording but it said something about installing 3rd party software.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #2 on:** August 26, 2009, 05:26 PM »

Quote from: edbro on August 26, 2009, 05:15 PM

Make sure you read the EULA carefully. I forget the exact wording but it said something about installing 3rd party software.

Hmmm. I confess to not looking carefully during install. I went back and looked, but can't find the license text. Checked the developer's page comments from users, as well as on ghacks (my source), and didn't find anyone complaining about it.

edbro · « **Reply #3 on:** August 26, 2009, 05:34 PM »

http://lifehacker.com/5345338/officetab-adds-tabs-to-microsoft-office#c14984642

Quote from SebastionP

Quote

From the Terms and Conditions:
* Third-party software
The software comes with other software as well as legal responsibility for the intellectual property of the free software providers to enjoy and commitment.

Having mentioned this caveat, I installed this last night and I do like it. Seems like something MS should have implemented on their own.

superboyac · « **Reply #4 on:** August 26, 2009, 05:35 PM »

Very very awesome. Thanks!

40hz · « **Reply #5 on:** August 26, 2009, 06:04 PM »

Seemed like a nice hack so I gave it a try. Works as advertised.

@CW... Thanks for the heads-up!

mwb1100 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 26, 2009, 06:33 PM »

Quote from: edbro on August 26, 2009, 05:34 PM

http://lifehacker.com/5345338/officetab-adds-tabs-to-microsoft-office#c14984642

Quote from SebastionP
Quote
From the Terms and Conditions:
* Third-party software
The software comes with other software as well as legal responsibility for the intellectual property of the free software providers to enjoy and commitment.

What does that sentence even mean? It's mostly gibberish to me.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #7 on:** August 26, 2009, 06:35 PM »

Quote from: mwb1100 on August 26, 2009, 06:33 PM

What does that sentence even mean? It's mostly gibberish to me.

I think it's attributable to English being a second language. My guess is that he's just acknowledging that he's used code from other sources, and not trying to claim copyright on everything for himself.

IainB · « **Reply #8 on:** August 27, 2009, 07:08 AM »

I came across this in Lifehacker, and straight away installed it (after reading through the web site in English translation).
Only thing is, it doesn't work in Word in Office 2007, though it Works fine in Excel and PowerPoint.

Any ideas?

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #9 on:** August 27, 2009, 10:34 AM »

Quote from: IainB on August 27, 2009, 07:08 AM

Only thing is, it doesn't work in Word in Office 2007, though it Works fine in Excel and PowerPoint.

It's working fine for me, Iain. Indeed, that's what the image is in my original post.

IainB · « **Reply #10 on:** August 27, 2009, 12:46 PM »

@CWuestefeld: Yes, I had already found that it did not work in Word, and when I saw your post and the image, I went back and reinstalled OfficeTab - in case I had made some kind of mistake. Same result though.

It's very frustrating.

40hz · « **Reply #11 on:** August 27, 2009, 03:07 PM »

Quote from: IainB on August 27, 2009, 12:46 PM

@CWuestefeld: Yes, I had already found that it did not work in Word, and when I saw your post and the image, I went back and reinstalled OfficeTab - in case I had made some kind of mistake. Same result though.

It's very frustrating.

@IanB - Must be frustrating. I'm running it on Word 2K3 and 2K7, and it works just fine for me. Is it possible your AV or other security software (or something else you added to Word) is stomping on the install?

Deozaan · « **Reply #12 on:** August 27, 2009, 10:16 PM »

Quote from: IainB on August 27, 2009, 12:46 PM

@CWuestefeld: Yes, I had already found that it did not work in Word, and when I saw your post and the image, I went back and reinstalled OfficeTab - in case I had made some kind of mistake. Same result though.

It's very frustrating.

Maybe it's the difference between a 32bit system and a 64bit system?

tsaint · « **Reply #13 on:** August 28, 2009, 01:22 AM »

I read a warning that it didn't always work, but tried it anyway. On my computer, I find that the area occupied by the ribbon simply disappears with this add on. (thats in word, didn't bother checking excel as I don't want word screwed up)
tony

IainB · « **Reply #14 on:** August 29, 2009, 01:44 AM »

I just downloaded and installed an updated version from here: http://files.cnblogs.com/wangminbai/OfficeTab_v1.21.zip
(OfficeTab v1.21 - Build 090828)

However, despite the more recent build (I had previously used Build 090823) the same problem as I posted earlier persists - i.e. it Works fine in Office 2007 Excel and PowerPoint, but does not work at all in Word. Note that my experience is that the Add-in behaves itself - the Tab Add-in is definitely installed in Word (I checked Alt-F|Word Options|Add-Ins) and nothing is "messed up" in any of the 3 Office applications.

@tsaint: Using the OfficeTab Setting Centre function that is built-in (installed by default to C:\Program Files\OfficeCM), I disabled the Tabs function in Word only, and when I checked Alt-F|Word Options|Add-Ins, the function is shown as an "Inactive Application Add-in".
You could do the same if you wanted to, thus avoiding any risk that Word is "messed up" in any way.

This really is a useful Add-in to MS Office. I shall be able to make great use of it in Excel, and a little use of it in PowerPoint. I could have made good use of it in Word also, if it worked there.

Hats off to the 21-year old Chinese male "Bo Master" who developed this Add-in.

Darwin · « **Reply #15 on:** August 29, 2009, 04:37 AM »

Thanks for the heads up on this one, CWuestefeld

I noticed the ghacks posting about this but didn't pay much attention; I'm glad you drew our attention to it! I've missed this funcitonality since I moved to Office 2007/Vista 64-bit (from Office 2003/XP 32-bit) as that move rendered a number of add-ins I used to do this inoperable

tsaint · « **Reply #16 on:** August 29, 2009, 08:45 AM »

I re-installd it, with the idea of disabling it in word... but word seemed to start ok, so I opened a 2nd tab. THEN my display started to get faint lines in it, which got worse and worse as I watched.
Eventally system froze (couldn't kill word) and when I rebooted, it seemed like the computer wanted to change graphics modes, or was cycling thru settings.
Now I'm in an endless start from last good configuration cycle which never works as the display is completely stuffed.
Maybe coincidental, maybe not.

Darwin · « **Reply #17 on:** September 03, 2009, 02:48 PM »

Well... sad to report that after a while this add-in simply disappeared off my machine without a trace

This occurred without a reboot! Very weird. Right, off to investigate. I'm not sure how far I'll get with this, but will post back if I get anywhere.

Darwin · « **Reply #18 on:** September 03, 2009, 02:56 PM »

Update - I really don't know what is going on: the uninstaller still showed up in "Programs and Features" (Add/Remove programs under Vista) and the settings dialog worked just fine from the start menu folder for Office Tabs 1.21 (my claim that it had disappeared "without a trace" was a bit OTT). I re-ran the installer and all is well. I'll be monitoring this, though.

Darwin · « **Reply #19 on:** September 06, 2009, 06:35 PM »

Alas, the problem I pointed out above seems to be consistent... The shortcuts and the program folders are there, but the tabs are absent in word, powerpoint and excel. I *have* re-booted the computer since the last time I posted about this issue (3 September) - anyone else experiencing this? I'm running Vista Ultimate 64 and Office 2007.

OldElmerFudd · « **Reply #20 on:** September 28, 2009, 07:30 AM »

Terrific! Tabbed documents are exactly what's been missing in MS Office, imho. I frequently need more than one file open at the same time. Using Office 2003 on XP Pro SP3 boxes. D/l'd v.1.22; seems fine. The EULA strikes me as the result of language differences.

Many thanks for this one!

libeco · « **Reply #21 on:** September 28, 2009, 08:28 AM »

This seemed like such a good idea when I installed it about a month ago... But it's a useless piece of crap (for me at least). On my dual core laptop XP SP3 with Office 2007 only opening word was enough to use half of my CPU power. Word became unresponsivee and had to quit soon after. I re-tried with the same result. I decided to uninstall but apparantly it didn't uninstall all because the tabs were gone but opening multiple documents didn't go too well. While I was used to seeing multiple Words (sounds weird) open, now it opened all in 1 instance of Word.

At the end I completely uninstalled Office and reinstalled it to get everything to normal again.

paarkhi · « **Reply #22 on:** September 29, 2009, 10:54 AM »

Already tried and doesn't work on office 2010

Contro · « **Reply #23 on:** October 03, 2009, 09:04 PM »

Don't work with office xp or 2002......

I put other post to try to get an alternative....

IainB · « **Reply #24 on:** October 08, 2009, 02:17 PM »

OfficeTab now works OK for me! (and presumably it could for you too).
Though this was a really useful Add-in to MS Office, on my laptop it had only seemed to work in Excel and PowerPoint, but not for Word (where I could have put it to good use). This was despite my not insignificant efforts to try to discover and "fix" the problem.

When I started up Word today, I discovered to my pleasant surprise that OfficeTabs now works a treat in Word as well.

The only thing that I had changed and that I think (no proof!) could have brought this about was that I had happened to use CCleaner (for the first time ever) - albeit with some trepidation - to clean some redundant garbage out of my system. So, I suspect that something was blocking the Add-In from working and CCleaner removed the blockage.

So, all you people (above) who tried OfficeTab and it didn't work or behave nicely in some way - well, it might not hurt to install OfficeTab, close all MS Office applications. Then, if OfficeTab does not work as it should, run CCleaner, reboot the PC, and restart the MS Office applications.

If you try this, then let us know how you get on please.