Developer checkBox greyed out in Excel Preferences

Question

I have 20 students, half of which downloaded the student version of excel before I realized that the developer feature was not accessible in the student version. The other half downloaded the full version from office.com after we changed the setting and gave them access to the full version. 

The students who never downloaded the student version and downloaded the full version have full access. All of my students have the same setting on office.com. Yet, when I try to switch the students who downloaded the student version first the ribbon menu is greyed out. To be clear I am on a Mac and I go to Excel -->Preferences --> Ribbon & Toolbar and all of that screen is greyed out.

I have tried doing the updates,

as well as Removing Office (including the com.micrsoft files in the library) restarting and reinstalling direct from the web and it still stays greyed out.

I need my students to have access to the developer feature as I teach them VBA in excel.

This is what I see...

Answer 1

Make sure in the one the Developer Tab is greyed out, go to  Excel Menu → Preferences → Preferences → View.

Then go back to Ribbon & Toolbar and see whether it is activated. 

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Answer 2

Hi,

Thanks for replying. I think that worked, (still need to check with a student laptop, but this looks promising). I was able to turn the developer tab on and off, however, the Ribbon and Toolbar option screen is still completely greyed out like in my earlier pic? It is odd because this issue is only with students who installed the student version first, anyone who downloaded direct from office.com and installed the full version sees that screen normally (and every student has the same office settings).

Thanks!

Answer 3

The administrator of your school's IT department can turn certain features on and off in their configuration files. You might want to contact your IT department and explain to them that they should not turn this feature off. I am pretty sure they can control this setting, but I am not 100% sure.