Programming Office Applications
Using Visual Studio Tools for Office to develop Microsoft Office solutions enables rapid application development (RAD). Visual Studio Tools for Office enables you to create document-level customizations and application-level add-ins by using Visual Basic and Visual C#.
In This Section
- Office Solutions Programming Model
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Provides information on how to program against host items, host controls, and data in documents. It also describes schema-based programming and server-side programming.
- Global Access to Objects in the Project
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Describes how to access members of the host item classes from outside of the classes.
- How to: Create Event Handlers in Visual Studio Tools for Office
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Explains how to add event handlers to Visual Studio Tools for Office projects using Visual Basic and C#.
- Managed Code and Office Programming with Visual Studio
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Provides an overview of Automation and how you can incorporate Microsoft Office applications into your custom solutions using managed code.
- Programming with Visual Basic Versus C#
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Provides key differences between using Visual Basic code and C# code when using Visual Studio Tools for Office to create applications.
- How to: Target Office Applications Through Primary Interop Assemblies
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Describes how to use the Microsoft Office primary interop assemblies to enable you to access the application's object model from your managed code.
- How to: Automate Objects Using Managed Code
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Discusses how many Microsoft Office object model methods and properties return the type Object, and how you can convert (in Visual Basic) or cast (in C#) the object to the correct type, which will activate IntelliSense.
- How to: Interact with Windows Forms
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Demonstrates how to add Windows Forms and other items to your document-level projects just as you do in other projects in Visual Studio.
- Walkthrough: Collecting Data Using a Windows Form
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Demonstrates how to open a Windows Form from an Excel spreadsheet, collect information from the user, and pull that information into Excel.
- Office UI Customization Overview
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Describes how to customize the user interface (UI) of Microsoft Office applications by using document-level customizations and application-level add-ins.
- Controls in Microsoft Office Projects
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Provides links to information about host items and adding Windows Forms controls and host controls to Word and Excel documents.
- Actions Pane Overview
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Provides an overview of the actions pane in document-level customizations and describes the advantages of using the actions pane over current smart document development.
- Custom Task Panes Overview
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Provides an overview of custom task panes in Microsoft Office applications, and demonstrates how to create a custom task pane by using an application-level add-in.
- Smart Tags Overview
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Provides an overview of how Visual Studio Tools for Office enhances smart tag development for Word and Excel solutions.
- Outlook Form Regions Overview
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Provides an overview of Outlook form regions in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, and demonstrates how to create an Outlook form region by using an application-level add-in.
- Ribbon Extensibility Overview
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Provides an overview of a custom Ribbon UI in Microsoft Office applications, and demonstrates how to customize the Ribbon UI by using an application-level add-in.
- How to: Create and Modify Custom Document Properties
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Describes how to create custom document properties in a document-level customization. It also demonstrates how to modify custom document properties.
- How to: Read from and Write to Document Properties
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Describes how to read data from built-in document properties in a document-level customization. It also demonstrates how to write data to the built-in properties.
- How to: Target the Office Multilingual User Interface
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Provides information about globalization and localization issues that you should consider when creating Microsoft Office solutions using Visual Studio Tools for Office.