Microsoft Word

Offizin for Word

Offizin adds a tab to Word with five buttons: Publications, Design, Page Parts, Business Info, and Check and Print. It is free for personal, work, school, and commercial use, and it needs no account.

Offizin

Publications

Design

Page Parts

Business Info

Check and Print

Step 1: Download the manifest

Word add-ins install from a small file called a manifest. It tells Word where Offizin lives and which buttons to add. It contains no program code of its own.

offizin-manifest.xml
The address inside it is https://offizin.alyssaagard.dev/word/manifest.xml Download manifest

Step 2: Add it to Word

Works with personal Microsoft accounts (Outlook.com, Hotmail, free Word on the web) and with work or school accounts.

Open any document in Word on the web at office.com.
On the Home tab, select Add-ins, then More Settings (or More Add-ins).
Choose Upload My Add-in, browse to offizin-manifest.xml, and select Upload.
The Offizin tab appears in the ribbon. Select Publications to start.

Good to knowWord on the web remembers the add-in in this browser. In another browser, or after clearing browsing data, upload the manifest again. If you do not see Upload My Add-in, your organization has turned it off: ask your IT team to use the Whole organization steps.

For Word for Mac with Microsoft 365, Office 2021, or Office 2024.

Quit Word.
In Finder, choose Go, then Go to Folder (Shift Command G), and paste:
~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wef
If Finder says the folder does not exist, go to ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents and create a folder named wef.
Move offizin-manifest.xml into the wef folder.
Open Word and any document. Select Home, then Add-ins, and choose Offizin. The Offizin tab appears.

Prefer Terminal? This does steps 2 and 3, assuming the manifest is in Downloads:

mkdir -p ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wef
cp ~/Downloads/offizin-manifest.xml ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wef/

Word for Windows installs single add-ins from a shared folder, which takes a few more steps. If you have a Microsoft account, Word on the web is quicker, and your IT team can deploy Offizin to every computer at once.

Create a folder for the manifest, for example C:\OffizinAddin, and move offizin-manifest.xml into it.
Right-click the folder, choose Properties, open the Sharing tab, and select Share. Share it with yourself, then copy the Network Path it shows, such as \\YOUR-PC\OffizinAddin.
In Word, choose File, Options, Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, then Trusted Add-in Catalogs.
Paste the network path into Catalog Url, select Add catalog, check Show in Menu, and select OK. Close and reopen Word.
Select Home, then Add-ins, then Advanced (or More Add-ins). Open Shared Folder, choose Offizin, and select Add.

Good to knowMicrosoft describes the shared folder method for testing and single computers. For a business or school, the Whole organization steps are the supported way, and they also update everyone automatically.

For Microsoft 365 business, enterprise, and education organizations. A Global Administrator or Exchange Administrator can deploy Offizin to everyone, to chosen groups, or to themselves first as a trial.

Open the Microsoft 365 admin center and go to Settings, then Integrated apps.
Select Upload custom apps. For the app type, choose Office Add-in.
Choose Provide link to the manifest file, paste https://offizin.alyssaagard.dev/word/manifest.xml, and select Validate.
Choose who gets Offizin: Just me to try it, Specific users/groups, or the Entire organization. Then select Deploy.
Offizin appears in Word on the web, Windows, and Mac for those people, usually within a few hours and always within 24 hours.

For IT reviewsOffizin is a task pane add-in with Read/Write Document permission. Its files are static pages served from offizin.alyssaagard.dev (GitHub Pages). It has no server, no account, no telemetry, and it makes no network calls with document content. Source code: github.com/alyssaagard/offizin.

What works where

Word	Publications, parts, schemes, checker	Page setup and columns buttons
Word on the web	Yes	Publications bring their own page size. To change it yourself, use Word's Layout tab.
Word for Windows, Microsoft 365	Yes	Yes, on version 2507 or later
Word for Mac, Microsoft 365	Yes	Yes, on version 16.99.2 or later
Word 2019, 2021, and 2024	Yes	Use Word's Layout tab
Word for iPad	Not yet. iPad add-ins come from Microsoft's store, which is planned.

Updates and removal

Offizin updates itself: Word loads the latest version from this website each time you open it, so there is nothing to reinstall. To remove it, open Home, Add-ins, then My Add-ins (Word on the web and Windows) and choose Remove. On a Mac, delete the manifest from the wef folder.

Questions? See Help.