How to scan into Word 2010

You could use the Custom UI Editor Tool, which lets you handcraft RibbonX XML to describe your button and then insert the XML file and your chosen image into the template that contains your macro. Then you can digitally sign the template file and put it into your Word Startup folder, so it’s loaded whenever Word is launched. RibbonX isn’t the easiest code to write, but at least all the tools you need are free.

The other alternative is to use Visual Studio 2010 to write an add-in for Word 2010, since it includes a visual ribbon designer that allows you to drag and drop buttons from the toolbox onto a graphical representation of Word’s ribbon and set properties for the tabs, groups and buttons.

The code for such an add-in is a little more complicated than that one-line macro, because it has to connect to Word on startup, disconnect on shutdown, handle the button click event and ignore any errors from the InsertImagerScan command, but all in all it’s fewer than 20 lines, most of which are written for you by the development environment.

Publishing your add-in by ClickOnce or through a Windows Installer Setup project is about the hardest part of this whole solution; it requires you to sign the assembly, manifest and installation kit digitally, and prove that you’ve marked the correct prerequisites to ensure the .NET Framework 4 Client Profile and the VSTO 2010 Runtime will be downloaded and installed if they’re not already present, which all takes time and thought.

Luckily for you, I’ve done all this for you: if you want the ability to scan directly into Word 2010, you’ll find my WordScan2010 add-in here.

The installation kit consists of a SETUP.EXE and an MSI file. The SETUP.EXE will check for the prerequisites, and download and install them if you haven’t already got them. Be aware that a restart may be required after installing the .NET Framework 4, and after this you should run the setup again to continue. The add-in works with Word 2010 RTM, but I can’t guarantee it will work with the beta version of the Click-to-Run virtualised version as used for the Home & Business edition beta.