What to do if add-in tabs or buttons do not appear

After an installation, new tabs should automatically appear in Excel. Depending on your purchase, you will see one or all of the following tabs in Excel: Assistants, Charts, Data Add-ins, Time Savers and Specialty. If you installed the Business Analysis Collection or the Risk Analysis Collection, then you would see tabs named Business or Risk.

Sometimes the tabs do not appear after an installation. Or, the tabs have disappeared after many months or years of use. Sometimes, a crash of Excel causes. Sometimes Microsoft updates, IS updates, or third party installs (or de-installs) may cause the disappearance. All are easy to solve.

To make the tabs appear

  • Open Excel and do the following:
  • Click the green File ribbon tab, Options, Add-ins.
    • Then, on the right side panel, click the GO button beside “Manage Excel Add-ins”
  • If you see Add-in Mgr 2007-2013 checked
    • uncheck it
    • close the dialog by the OK button
    • close Excel (must do!)
    • Then repeat the above steps to display the dialog and then do the following
  • All: A small dialog titled “Add-ins” will appear. Click the BROWSE button on this box
    • Go up to the Roaming folder by clicking on in the folder path box and remove “Microsoft\add-ins” and pressing Enter
    • Select the Folder named “Add-ins” under the Roaming folder *
    • Select ONLY the file named “Add-in Mgr.xlam” *
    • Click OKs to finish the installation. If told you are replacing an existing entry, agree to the replacement.

* If you do not see the Add-ins folder or Add-in Mgr.xlam

This means you are not running the installation MSI as Admin. Or, for some reason (paranoid IS Dept or antivirus?) installation to the normal installation folder is blocked. To solve, do the following:

  • In your Documents folder, create a folder called My Software
  • Close Excel and re-run the installation file and specify this folder instead. It will create a subfolder named “Add-ins”
  • Open Excel, and if the Add-ins tabs do not appear, do File, Options, Add-ins, GO
  • In the small dialog that appears, click on the Browse button
  • Navigate to My Documents\My Software\Add-ins and select Add-in Mgr.xlam
    • Click OKs to finish the installation. If told you are replacing an existing entry, agree to the replacement