Word 2007 Ribbon - Properly aligning controls in a group

Question

I am not able to properly align the controls in a group in custom ribbon in Word 2007.

In the above screenshot you can notice the textboxes and the dropdowns are not properly aligned. Following is my CustomUI ribbon XML:-

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui" onLoad="RibbonLoad">
<ribbon>
<tabs>
<tab id="tabZZZZ" label="ZZZZ">
<group id="grpItems" label="Items">
<dropDown id="ddlQQQ"  getItemLabel="qqqq" onAction="rrrr"  label="zzzz zzzzz">
<item id="item1" label="item1"/>
</dropDown>
<editBox id="editAAA1" label="AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA" onChange="ZZZ" />
<editBox  id="editBBBB" label="BBBB BBBBB BBBBB BBBBB" onChange="BBB" />
<separator id="separator1" />
<editBox id="editCCCC" label="CCCCCC CC CCCCCC CCCC" onChange="CCC" />
<dropDown id="ddlDDD" label="DDDDDDD DDDD DDDDDDDD DDDD" onAction="DDD" getItemLabel="DDD">
<item id="Item1" label="Item1"/>
</dropDown>
<button id="btnEEE" label="EEEEEEEEEEEEEE" onAction="EEEE"/>
</group>                    
</tab>
</tabs>
</ribbon>
</customUI>

My apologies for such weird names for labels. However, the number of characters in each label in the above XML is same that for the actual labels I am using. Could anyone please advice?

Answer 1

This is by-design, the design surface doesn't support multi-component layout like Access. To achieve what you're looking for, try this instead:

<group id="Group1" label="Group1">
    <labelControl id="ddlQQQ" label="zzzz zzzzz" />
    <labelControl id="editAAA1" label="AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA" />
    <labelControl id="editBBBB" label="BBBB BBBBB BBBBB BBBBB" />
    <dropDown id="ddlQQQDropDown" label="DropDown1" showLabel="false" showImage="false" />
    <editBox id="editAAA1EditBox" label="EditBox1" showLabel="false" showImage="false" />
    <editBox id="editBBBBEditBox" label="EditBox2" showLabel="false" showImage="false" />
</group>

As a side note, you may want to set the SizeString on your dropdown and/or edit boxes to ensure uniform width across them.