VSTO for Mere Mortals (TM): A VBA Developer's Guide to Microsoft Office Development Using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

✍ Scribed by Kathleen McGrath

• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 726
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Praise for VSTO for Mere Mortals™

"This is the book I wish I'd had when I was first introduced to VSTO and the .NET Framework. It will be invaluable not only to those considering VSTO, but for anyone transitioning from Office VBA to Visual Basic.NET. The wide range of subjects covered provides an entry point for the more in-depth, developer-oriented documentation available on MSDN and elsewhere."

–Cindy Meister, MS Word MVP

" VSTO for Mere Mortals™ does a great job of building a bridge between the worlds of VBA and VSTO. Kathleen and Paul show how a VBA developer can have the richness of Office and also the power, maintainability, and security of Visual Studio. They succeeded in writing a book that is approachable, understandable, and compelling."

–KD Hallman, General Manager, Microsoft, Developer Division

"This book is an excellent choice for VBA developers looking to make the switch to .NET development for Office using Visual Studio Tools for Office. In many instances VB.NET code is presented alongside equivalent VBA code to help illustrate key conceptual and usage differences."

–Steve Hansen, OfficeZealot.com, author of Mastering Excel 2003 Programming with VBA and coauthor of Mastering Excel 2000 Premium Edition

"Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office is the way to go for building managed Office applications. If you're moving from VBA to managed code, this book shows you the way."

–Ken Getz, Senior Consultant, MCW Technologies, LLC

"This book is highly recommended for VBA developers who are interested in doing Office programming using the rich power of Visual Studio and .NET."

–Mei Liang, Software Design Engineer in Test, Microsoft

"Kathleen McGrath has stuffed VSTO for Mere Mortals™ with in-depth code samples that demonstrate VSTO in an easy-to-understand way. From simple how-to's to advanced functionality, it's all here. I learned a great deal from reading this book."

–Justin Whitney, Technical Journalist

"This book provides an instantly accessible resource for VBA and Office developers to become familiar with the powerful new Office development platform, but even goes beyond that, providing a number of 'worth the purchase of the book' tips, fully functional examples, and elegant methods from someone who has obviously spent a lot of time with these tools to help the mortal on the path to becoming a guru."

–Rory Plaire, Solutions Architect, DigitalCommons LLC

"For the Office VBA developer interested in programming in .NET or the .NET programmer looking to move to the Office platform, this book is worth its weight in gold. If you are looking for a complete, well-written source to quickly get you up to speed to develop and program Office solutions in Visual Studio 2005, I believe this book is a must-have."

–Frank Rice, Programming Writer, Microsoft Office Developer Center

"With this book, VBA developers have access to a great resource that will help them understand essential concepts of managed code and best practices to migrate VBA solutions to Visual Basic 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office. This book goes beyond an introduction to VSTO to introduce the new world of VSTO 2005 SE and the 2007 Microsoft Office system."

–Erika Ehrli Cabral, Site Manager, MSDN Office Developer Center, Microsoft

"Kathleen and Paul have been involved with VSTO in one way or the other from its very beginnings, and it shows. Their depth and breadth of knowledge is reflected in this detailed and authoritative book. I highly recommend it for any professional developer making the transition from VBA to managed code."

–Eric Lippert, Software Design Engineer, Microsoft

VSTO for Mere Mortals™ is for VBA developers who are interested in migrating their skills to the next generation of Office development. Readers will benefit from a straightforward, practical introduction to writing managed code applications for Word 2003, Excel 2003, and Outlook 2003. Readers will also learn how to create add-ins for the most popular applications for Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system using VSTO 2005 SE.

The expert authors provide a wealth of code samples that show off popular features of VSTO, such as smart tags and the actions pane. Sample code also shows you how to customize the new UI features of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, including the ribbon, custom task pane, and Outlook forms region.

VBA developers will walk away with

• A greater understanding of managed code and the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE)

• Multiple demonstrations on how to create document-level customizations for Word 2003 and Excel 2003, using view controls, data binding, and the actions pane

• A comprehensive overview of add-in development for Outlook 2003

• Useful information on securing and deploying solutions created with VSTO and VSTO 2005 SE

• A thorough explanation on how to migrate VBA solutions to Visual Basic 2005 and VSTO

• Numerous details on customizing the ribbon, custom task pane, and Outlook form regions by developing VSTO 2005 SE add-ins for the 2007 Microsoft Office system

✦ Table of Contents

VSTO for mere mortals......Page 1
Contents......Page 10
Foreword......Page 22
Preface......Page 26
Introduction......Page 28
Acknowledgments......Page 34
About the Authors......Page 36
PART I: INTRODUCTION TO VSTO......Page 38
What Is VSTO?......Page 40
Why Use VSTO Instead of VBA?......Page 42
Features of VSTO......Page 44
Creating VSTO Solutions......Page 52
How VSTO Integrates with Visual Studio......Page 59
Summary......Page 62
Review Questions......Page 63
Introduction to the Visual Studio IDE......Page 64
Viewing IDE Windows......Page 72
Tools for Writing Code......Page 89
Building and Running Code......Page 98
Debugging Your Code......Page 100
Locating and Using Help......Page 119
Summary......Page 124
Review Questions......Page 125
What Is Managed Code?......Page 126
Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming......Page 128
Exploring the .NET Framework......Page 145
VSTO and Managed Code......Page 157
Summary......Page 163
Review Questions......Page 164
Moving to Visual Basic 2005......Page 166
New Features of Visual Basic 2005......Page 167
Language Differences of VBA and Visual Basic 2005......Page 177
UserForms Versus Windows Forms......Page 189
Review Questions......Page 207
PART II: WORD AND EXCEL......Page 208
What Is a Task Pane?......Page 210
Customizing the Document Actions Task Pane......Page 212
Managing the Actions Pane......Page 214
Designing Actions Pane Solutions......Page 217
Creating Context-Sensitive Solutions......Page 231
Summary......Page 241
Review Questions......Page 242
Programming in Word......Page 244
Word Host Items and Host Controls......Page 255
Data Binding to Host Controls on Documents......Page 270
Programming Against Events......Page 277
Special Enhancements to the Bookmark......Page 302
Making Word Documents Smart......Page 306
Summary......Page 307
Review Questions......Page 308
Programming in Excel......Page 310
Excel Host Items and Host Controls......Page 322
Data Binding to Host Controls on Worksheets......Page 345
Programming Against Events......Page 357
Making Excel Smarter......Page 385
Summary......Page 386
Review Questions......Page 387
About Controls......Page 388
Adding Controls to Toolbars and Menus......Page 389
Using Windows Forms Controls......Page 402
Adding Controls to a Windows Form......Page 415
Adding Controls to the Task Pane......Page 425
Adding Controls to Excel and Word Documents......Page 427
Summary......Page 452
Review Questions......Page 453
What Is a Smart Tag?......Page 454
Creating Word and Excel Smart Tags with VSTO......Page 459
Understanding Smart Tag Properties......Page 463
Taking Action on a Smart Tag......Page 465
Introduction to Regular Expressions......Page 473
Overriding Smart Tag Recognizers......Page 483
Review Questions......Page 492
PART III: OUTLOOK AND BEYOND......Page 494
Application-Level Customizations Using VSTO......Page 496
Outlook Object Model Overview......Page 512
Customizing Menus and Toolbars in Outlook......Page 519
Debugging Add-ins......Page 523
Security in Outlook Add-ins Created with VSTO......Page 529
Summary......Page 533
Review Questions......Page 534
VSTO Security Model......Page 536
Deploying Word and Excel Solutions......Page 542
Deploying Outlook Solutions......Page 565
Review Questions......Page 566
Migration Overview......Page 568
Migration Strategies......Page 569
Simple Migration of a Word VBA Project......Page 571
Advanced Migration of a Word VBA Project......Page 574
VBA and VSTO Interoperability......Page 584
Review Questions......Page 590
ServerDocument Overview......Page 592
Attaching and Detaching Document-Based Customizations......Page 593
Reading and Writing the Data Cache......Page 597
Clearing the Data Cache......Page 608
Review Questions......Page 609
Introduction to VSTO 2005 SE......Page 612
Creating Add-ins......Page 621
Customizing the Ribbon......Page 622
Creating Custom Task Panes......Page 659
Creating a Custom Form Region......Page 675
Review Questions......Page 687
Appendix A: Creating Code Snippets......Page 688
Importing the Code Snippet......Page 690
Inserting the Code Snippet......Page 691
Using the Code Snippets Manager......Page 692
Appendix B: Creating Inspector CommandBars......Page 694
A......Page 702
B......Page 703
C......Page 704
D......Page 706
E......Page 709
F......Page 710
H......Page 711
I......Page 712
M......Page 713
N......Page 715
O......Page 716
P......Page 717
R......Page 718
S......Page 719
T......Page 721
U......Page 722
V......Page 723
W......Page 725
Z......Page 726