As an alternative to customized ribbon files, which override the existing ribbon, you can import external custom tabs to the ribbon. The customized tabs are automatically appended to the end of the ribbon for all users who use the same firm or environment folder. This means that an administrator can distribute customizations to all users in the company while still allowing individual users to customize their ribbons as well.

1. Create the following folder structure in your company's firm folder or in the system folder.

   

2. In the Ribbon editor , create a customized tab and add some commands to it.
3. Save the ribbon.
4. Go to the ..\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Trimble\Tekla Structures\<version>\UI\Ribbons folder.
5. In a text editor, open the ribbon file which contains the tab you wish to share with other users.
6. Remove all the other content from the ribbon file except the first row and the description of the tab you wish to share.

   For example:

   <Tab Header="My Tab" IsCollapsed="false" IsUserDefined="true">
       <SimpleButton X="0" Y="0" Width="3" Height="4" Command="Common.Interrupt" Text="command:ShortText" Icon="command:BigIcon" ShowText="true" ShowIcon="true" />
     </Tab>

7. Save the file with a new name in the ..\CustomTabs\Modeling or ..\CustomTabs\Drawing folder.

   Tab files have the file name extension *.xml. We recommend that you use the same name as for the tab. For example, MyTab.xml. The file name is not case sensitive.

   The tab will be added to either the modeling or drawing mode ribbons, depending on the folder it is located in. Note that there can be several custom tab files in the same folder. They are added to the ribbon one after the other. Note that if the same tab file exists in both the environment and firm folders, the firm version overrides the environment version.

   Note:

   To avoid file name conflicts, we recommend that administrators prefix all custom tab files with the company name, and that extension developers prefix all custom tab files with the name of the extension (for example, MyExtension_TabName.xml ).

8. If the tab contains user-defined commands, copy the UserDefined.xml file from the ..\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Trimble\Tekla Structures\<version>\UI\Commands folder to the \Commands folder created in step 1.
9. Restart Tekla Structures.

   The customized tab now appears at the end of the ribbon.