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Excel Application-Level Add-in Development

An application-level add-in for Microsoft Office Excel consists of an assembly that is loaded by Excel. The assembly typically extends Excel by customizing the user interface (UI) and by automating Excel. Unlike a document-level customization, which is associated with a specific workbook, functionality that you implement in an add-in is not restricted to any single workbook.

For general information about application-level add-ins, see Getting Started Programming Application-Level Add-Ins and Architecture of Application-Level Add-Ins.

link to video For a related video demonstration, see How Do I: Automate PowerPoint from an Excel Add-in?.

Excel Add-in Programming Model

When you create an Excel add-in project, Visual Studio Tools for Office generates a class, called ThisAddIn, which is the foundation of your solution. This class provides a starting point for writing your code, and it also exposes the object model of Excel to your add-in.

For more information about the ThisAddIn class and other Visual Studio Tools for Office features you can use in an add-in, see Programming Application-Level Add-Ins.

Customizing the User Interface of Excel

For Excel 2007, you can customize the UI in the following ways:

For Excel 2003, you can customize the UI in the following ways:

For more information about customizing the UI of Excel and other Microsoft Office applications, see Office UI Customization.

See Also

Concepts

Getting Started Programming Application-Level Add-Ins

Programming Application-Level Add-Ins

Office UI Customization