I have recently installed Office 365 on a new computer running Windows 8.1 (actually the third one in just over a month, but that’s another story). Office 2013 has several annoying features, but for me the most annoying was that the VBA smart indenter add-in from Office Automation did not work. The web-site only mentions Excel versions up to 2003, but it was working with no problems with Office 365 and Excel 2013 on my last Windows 7 computer, and a search suggests that it should work with Windows 8 and 32 bit versions of Office 2013, but on my machine it doesn’t.
My solution to this problem was to install the alternative smart indenter from Andrew Engwirda. This works on my system with no problems (after reading the installation instructions, you need to enable “Trust access to the VBA project object model” ), and will also work with 64 bit versions of Office.
If anyone else has had a problem with the original code indenter and 32 bit Office, I’d be glad to hear from you, especially if you found a way to make it work, but in the meantime Andrew’s alternative code works just fine.
Newton Excel Bach, not (just) an Excel Blog 
I use smart indenter on the standalone version of excel 2013. di you try right clicking and installing as administrator?
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I came on here to say yes it works for me, only to find it’s ok on my work PC but I can’t make it work on the home one … can’t trace any difference at the moment.
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Hi, did you find the cause or solution?
J.
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I try to install it on office 365 64 bits without success (stored in C/programs/Microsoft office 15/root/office15/addin). I can see it in VBA project, went to the trust center to trust VBA object but still nothing when I right click a module or a code. I see it in developper tab add in but not in VBA add in manager.
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Please follow up any problems at the author’s site:
http://blog.livedoor.jp/andrewe/archives/51271922.html
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The Smart Indenter has been working for me in all 32-bit versions of Office up to and including 2013 that I have been running. However, I just installed 2016 on a new laptop, and while Smart Indenter seems fine, it ignores my custom tab width of 2 spaces, using instead the default 4 spaces.
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Hmm, it’s also using the default tab width in Excel 2013. Something must have goofed up when I set up this computer.
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Aha, the Smart Indenter uses the tab width setting that is stored in the registry here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\6.0\Common\TabWidth
But later versions of Office store the custom tab setting in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\6.0\Common\TabWidth
or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\6.0\Common\TabWidth
So I had to recreate the first key and insert the custom tab width. Now it works fine.
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AAARGH! Clicked SEND too soon. That last comment should read:
Aha, the Smart Indenter uses the tab width setting that is stored in the registry here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\6.0\Common\TabWidth
But later versions of Office store the custom tab setting in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\7.0\Common\TabWidth
or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\7.1\Common\TabWidth
So I had to recreate the first key and insert the custom tab width. Now it works fine.
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Thanks for that Jon. (Although since I have been playing with Python I have got into the habit of indenting as I go anyway).
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Oh, I indent as I go. But then whenever I make changes, or drop in code from another project, I may need to adjust a bunch of indenting all at once.
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I can’t get it to work at all in Excel 2016. The addin is there, but the context menu doesn’t show in the code window in VBA.
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Have you installed 32-bit Excel 2016?
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Was able to get this working of Win10(x64) Office 2013(x32). The issue was with Msaddndr.dll that VBA indenter seems to reference. I had an older version installed and once I updated and registered the proper version, Indenter installed perfectly (or you can manually register the DLL). Here is the related MS KB article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2792179
My issue was reflected in the install log @ C:\Program Files (x86)\Office Automation\Smart Indenter\VBA6\INSTALL.LOG, “Could not Self-Register: C:\PROGRA~2\OFFICE~1\SMARTI~1\VBA6\INDENT~1.DLL”
Hope this helps anyone in the same situation.
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Had the same issue with smartindenter.
on my Win10/Excel2013 it was working on an other Win7/Excel2013 it did not install correct. (Could not Self-Register: C:\PROGRA~2\OFFICE~1\SMARTI~1\VBA6\INDENT~1.DLL)
My solution was to copy the dll (“c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\DESIGNER\MSADDNDR.DLL”) from the running system to the other and registering it manually.
regsvr32 “c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\DESIGNER\MSADDNDR.DLL”
after that smart indenter installed correct.
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Thanks for that Daniel. I will give it a go when I have time.
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More details about MSaddndr.dll here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2792179
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It seems the problem may be connected to the installation of MZ Tools…
http://www.devhut.net/2015/01/12/smart-inderter-not-working-in-office-2010-2013/
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I’ve never had a problem with MZ Tools interfering with Smart Indent. I’ve been using them together for ages.
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Thanks Jon,
I have just re-installed Smart Indent (now with 32 bit Excel 2016 and windows 10), and this time it works with no problem, along with MZ Tools.
I don’t know what has changed, but it installed with no problems at all.
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Checking PhilUK’s link, it doesn’t say MZ Tools is a problem, it says it needs to be installed first, and in fact Smart Indent by itself didn’t work.
I had MZ Tools when I installed Smart Indent today, and it may not have been installed when I tried last year, so this is consistent with my experience.
Some of the comments at the link say it didn’t work for them however, and refer to msaddndr.dll, as recommended in previous comments here.
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Thanks PhilUK, this (and Jon Peltier’s comment) prompted me to have another go, and today it works.
Inverted Windows Haiku:
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
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Hi !
This morning, I installed Office 2013 and after installing Smart Identer, this one was inoperative. Due to research, I came across a site where he was talking about a DLL that could fix the problem. This is what I did, downloaded and installed. I put in PJ this dll + Smart Identer, that will have to put in the folder System32 for windows 32bits; In the SysWOW64 folder for 64-bit Windows. Then, open the command prompt (admin), and then
For 32bit (copy and paste):
% Systemroot% \ System32 \ regsvr32 C: \ Windows \ System32 \ MSADDNDR.dll
For the 64bit:
% Systemroot% \ SysWoW64 \ regsvr32 C: \ Windows \ SysWOW64 \ MSADDNDR.dll
Once installed, install the Smart Identer.
There you go. You can finally use it.
Download here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxkhbRLAoge_enBubVduZnhLN1U
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The Smart Indenter project had been dormant for many years, and was eventually donated to the Open Source Rubberduck VBA project (http://rubberduckvba.com/), ported to C# and made to work with both 32 and 64-bit hosts. It has also had numerous bug fixes, optimizations and new settings, and runs more robustly and in a fraction of the time. The Smart Indenter feature is now actively developed. But Rubberduck VBA is more than just a smart indenter: It analyses and improves/fixes your code, adds a find all references feature, allows code to be organized in folders, adds unit testing to VBA projects, introduces refactorings, includes a Regex helper and integrates with source control. There are many more features planned, including parsing the ribbon callbacks, and worksheet/Access controls.
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I’ve actually linked to Rubberduck here before:
https://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/solvers-parsers-and-more/
but thanks for the reminder, and the update on Smart Indenter.
I’ll put a new link in a new post in a few days.
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@ThunderFrame: I’ve been a SmartIndenter user for years., what a good news you gave me!
Indenting is crucial in aprogrammer’s life!
A BIG THANKS from Italy! 🙂
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