VSTO: Using C # to develop Excel, Word "3"

Objective
In 2002, Visual Studio. NET and the first version of the. NET Framework are nearing completion. Several of us are aware of Microsoft's. NET will miss office, unless we do something about it.

Previously used to be visual Basic for Applications (VBA), this is a simple development environment that integrates into all Office applications. Each Office application has a rich object model that is accessed through a technology called COM. Millions of developers define themselves as Office developers and use the rich features and user interface of Office, from automating repetitive tasks to creating complete business solutions using the VBA and Office COM object models. These developers realize that their users have spent the day on office. By building solutions that run inside office, they not only satisfy users, but also create more, lower-cost solutions by reusing features already available in Office applications.

Unfortunately, due to some limitations of VBA, office programming begins to get a bad comment. Solutions developed by small workgroups or individuals in VBA will gain momentum and professional developers will have to take steps to start supporting them. For professional developers, the VBA environment feels simple and limited, and of course it implements a single language: Visual Basic. VBA embedded code in each custom document makes it difficult to fix errors and update the solution because errors are replicated throughout the enterprise's documents. A security vulnerability in the VBA model caused the enterprise to turn off VBA for worms and macro viruses.

Visual Studio. NET and. NET Framework provide a way to address all of these issues. There is a huge opportunity to not only combine the richness of the new. NET Framework and developer tools with the powerful platform that Office has always provided to developers, but also solve the problems that plague VBA. The result of this implementation is visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO).

The first version of VSTO is simple, but it enables professional developers to take advantage of visual Studio. NET and the full functionality of the. NET Framework put code in the key goals of Excel 2003 and Word 2003 documents and templates. It enables professional developers to develop Office solutions in vb.net and C #. It links documents by linking them to. NET assembly instead of embedding it in a document to solve the problem of embedded code. It also introduces a use. NET code access security to prevent the new security model for worms and macro viruses.

The second version of VSTO, known as VSTO 2005, is more ambitious in the VSTO version covered by this book. It brings features that office developers have previously been unable to use, such as data binding and data/view separation, the design-time view of Excel and Word documents in Visual Studio, and rich support for Windows Forms controls in documents. Create the ability to customize the Office task pane for server-side programming support for Officeand, which is just scratched on the surface. While the primary goal of VSTO is for professional developers, this does not mean that building Office solutions using VSTO is rocket science. VSTO can create very rich applications with a few lines of code.

This book attempts to place all the information that is successful with VSTO in one place to program word 2003,excel 2003,outlook 2003 and InfoPath 2003. It introduces the Office object model and covers the most commonly used objects in these object models. In addition, this book will help you avoid some of the pitfalls of the Office object model's COM origins.

This book also provides an insider's view of all the rich features of VSTO. We are involved in the design and implementation of many of these features. So we can speak from the unique perspective of VSTO life and breathing for the last three years. Programming offices using VSTO are powerful and fun. We want you to like using VSTO, just like the article we like, and create it.

Eric Carter
Eric Lippert
May 2005

VSTO: Using C # to develop Excel, Word "3"