TabsForWord — Tabs for Microsoft Word

A COM add-in for desktop Microsoft Word on Windows that adds a tab bar for the open documents: click a tab to switch to that document, the way tabs work in a browser.

Читать по-русски: README.ru.md.

Four documents, one bar: the first tab is pinned, the third one is coloured, the active one shows the amber dot of unsaved changes.

Since version 1.6.0 the tab bar lives inside the Word window, right below the ribbon, with no Custom Task Pane title strip above it (decision ADR-015; how it works: docs/NATIVE_TAB_HOST.md). The classic Custom Task Pane mode is kept as a fallback: it can be switched on with Classic-mode.cmd from the installation folder, and it switches itself on if the in-window host ever fails.

Since version 1.7.0 the interface follows Word's own UI language — Russian Word gets Russian tabs, everything else gets English — and the language can be picked by hand in Settings (ADR-016).

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 1903 (May 2019) or newer, or Windows 11 — these already include .NET Framework 4.8.
• Desktop Microsoft Word for Windows (Microsoft 365, Word 2016 or newer). Not Word Online, not Word for macOS, not Word on mobile.
• No administrator rights: the add-in is installed for the current user only.

What it does

• One tab per open document, in every Word window, kept in sync.
• Close, close others, pin, reorder by dragging, colour a tab, choose the tab size, open the file's folder.
• A dot marks unsaved changes; a tooltip shows the full path.
• Overflow: tabs shrink, then a compact mode, then ‹ › scrolling.
• A ▾ menu listing every tab with a search box, and a Settings window.
• Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab to switch tabs (can be turned off).
• Per-monitor DPI: the bar scales with the monitor the window is on.

The ▾ menu lists every open document and filters them as you type.

Right-click a tab for closing, pinning, the colour and the size.

For users

• Install: docs/INSTALL_EN.md · по-русски: docs/INSTALL_RU.md
• Uninstall: docs/UNINSTALL_EN.md · по-русски: docs/UNINSTALL_RU.md
• Ready-to-install files: the Releases page
• Known limitations, honestly written down: docs/KNOWN_ISSUES.md

For developers

• Architecture: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
• Decision log (why things are the way they are): docs/DECISIONS.md
• The in-window tab host in detail: docs/NATIVE_TAB_HOST.md
• Research behind the approach: docs/RESEARCH.md
• Testing rules and the required test matrix: docs/TESTING.md
• Build: scripts/build-release.ps1 (needs the .NET SDK; Visual Studio is not required — see docs/ENVIRONMENT.md)

Everything under docs/ is in English.

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE. Use it, change it, ship it in your own product; just keep the copyright line. It comes with no warranty of any kind: the add-in runs inside Word next to your documents, and you use it at your own risk.