Adding Items to a Context Menu

When you right-click on a cell, Excel provides you with a feature-rich Context menu that allows you to do any number of things. You may want to add some features to that Context menu, particularly if they are features you use often.

Unfortunately, you cannot edit Context menus in the same manner that you can edit other menus—by using Customize from the Tools menu. Instead, you must manipulate Context menus through VBA.

If you want to add an item to the Context menu that appears when you right-click on a cell, you can use the following code:

Sub AddItemToContextMenu()
    Dim cmdNew As CommandBarButton
    Set cmdNew = CommandBars("cell").Controls.Add

    With cmdNew
        .Caption = "My Procedure"
        .OnAction = "MyProcedure"
        .BeginGroup = True
    End With
End Sub

All you need to do is set the .Caption property to whatever menu text you want used, and then change the .OnAction property so that it points to a macro or command you want used. When you later want to remove the menu option, you can use the following macro:

Sub RemoveContextMenuItem()
    On Error Resume Next
    CommandBars("cell").Controls("My Procedure").Delete
End Sub

To use this, change the "My Procedure" text to whatever text you used in the .Caption property of the previous macro. The On Error statement is used in this macro just in case the specified macro item had not been previously added.

By modifying your macro just a bit, you can specify that the addition to the Context menu should occur only when right-clicking on specific cells. The following macro checks to see if you are clicking on a cell in the range of C10:E25. If you are, then it adds a menu option for your procedure at the end of the Context menu.

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeRightClick(ByVal Target As Range, _
  Cancel As Boolean)
    Dim cmdNew As CommandBarButton

    For Each icbc In Application.CommandBars("cell").Controls
        If icbc.Tag = "brccm" Then icbc.Delete
    Next icbc

    If Not Application.Intersect(Target, Range("c10:e25")) _
      Is Nothing Then
        Set cmdNew = CommandBars("cell").Controls.Add
        With cmdNew
            .Caption = "My Procedure"
            .OnAction = "MyProcedure"
            .BeginGroup = True
            .Tag = "brccm"
        End With
    End If
End Sub

In the VBA editor, this macro needs to be added to the specific worksheet that you want it used with. All you need to do is double-click on that worksheet, in the Project Explorer (upper-left corner of the VBA editor), and then enter it into the code window for that worksheet.

As with the earlier macro, all you need to do is modify the settings specified for the .Caption and .OnAction properties. In addition, you may want to change the cell range that is considered "valid" when adding a menu choice—just change the "c:10:e25" range specification to the range desired. You can even use a named range in place of the cell range, which is great if your valid range is really a set of non-contiguous cells.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2064) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.