Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office for Mere Mortals: A VBA Developer's Guide to Managed Code in Microsoft Office

by Kathleen McGrath, Paul Stubbs

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780132701716
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	12/29/2006
Series:	For Mere Mortals
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
File size:	32 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kathleen McGrath is a programming writer at Microsoft. She has written documentation for Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO), Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA), and Visual Basic. Prior to joining Microsoft, she worked as a VBA developer customizing Word applications in the financial printing and legal industries. Kathleen has also created short video demonstrations of the features of VSTO and Visual Basic on her blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/kathleen.

Paul Stubbs works as a program manager with the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) team at Microsoft. In addition to VSTO, Paul works with the VSTA team developing a new managed code application programmability development tool for InfoPath 2007 and independent software vendors (ISVs). Paul has written for MSDN Magazine and has spoken at such events as TechEd and TechReady. Paul also participates in the developer community on the Microsoft forums and his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/pstubbs.

Table of Contents

Foreword xxi Preface xxv Introduction xxvii Acknowledgments xxxiii About the Authors xxxv Part I Introduction to VSTO 1 Chapter 1 Getting Started with VSTO 3

Topics Covered in This Chapter 3

What Is VSTO? 3

Why Use VSTO Instead of VBA? 5

Features of VSTO 7

Creating VSTO Solutions 15

How VSTO Integrates with Visual Studio 22

Summary 25

Review Questions 26

Chapter 2 The Programming Environment 27

Topics Covered in This Chapter 27

Introduction to the Visual Studio IDE 27

Viewing IDE Windows 35

Tools for Writing Code 52

Building and Running Code 61

Debugging Your Code 63

Locating and Using Help 82

Summary 87

Review Questions 88

Chapter 3 Introduction to Managed Code 89

Topics Covered in This Chapter 89

What Is Managed Code? 89

Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming 91

Exploring the .NET Framework 108

VSTO and Managed Code 120

Summary 126

Review Questions 127

Chapter 4 Moving from VBA to VSTO and Visual Basic 2005 129

Topics Covered in This Chapter 129

Moving to Visual Basic 2005 129

New Features of Visual Basic 2005 130

Language Differences of VBA and Visual Basic 2005 140

UserForms Versus Windows Forms 152

Summary 170

Review Questions 170

Part II Word and Excel 171 Chapter 5 Customizing Word and Excel Task Panes 173

Topics Covered in This Chapter 173

What Is a Task Pane? 173

Customizing the Document Actions Task Pane 175

Managing the Actions Pane 177

Designing Actions Pane Solutions 180

Creating Context-Sensitive Solutions 194

Summary 204

Review Questions 205

Chapter 6 Customizing Word with VSTO 207

Topics Covered in This Chapter 207

Programming in Word 207

Word Host Items and Host Controls 218

Data Binding to Host Controls on Documents 233

Programming Against Events 240

Special Enhancements to the Bookmark 265

Making Word Documents Smart 269

Summary 270

Review Questions 271

Chapter 7 Customizing Excel with VSTO 273

Topics Covered in This Chapter 273

Programming in Excel 273

Excel Host Items and Host Controls 285

Data Binding to Host Controls on Worksheets 308

Programming Against Events 320

Making Excel Smarter 348

Summary 349

Review Questions 350

Chapter 8 Controls in Word and Excel 351

Topics Covered in This Chapter 351

About Controls 351

Adding Controls to Toolbars and Menus 352

Using Windows Forms Controls 365

Adding Controls to a Windows Form 378

Adding Controls to the Task Pane 388

Adding Controls to Excel and Word Documents 390

Summary 415

Review Questions 416

Chapter 9 Smart Tags in Word and Excel 417

Topics Covered in This Chapter 417

What Is a Smart Tag? 417

Creating Word and Excel Smart Tags with VSTO 422

Understanding Smart Tag Properties 426

Taking Action on a Smart Tag 428

Introduction to Regular Expressions 436

Overriding Smart Tag Recognizers 446

Summary 455

Review Questions 455

Part III Outlook and Beyond 457 Chapter 10 Creating Add-ins for Outlook with VSTO 459

Topics Covered in This Chapter 459

Application-Level Customizations Using VSTO 459

Outlook Object Model Overview 475

Customizing Menus and Toolbars in Outlook 482

Debugging Add-ins 486

Security in Outlook Add-ins Created with VSTO 492

Summary 496

Review Questions 497

Chapter 11 Security and Deployment 499

Topics Covered in This Chapter 499

VSTO Security Model 499

Deploying Word and Excel Solutions 505

Deploying Outlook Solutions 528

Summary 529

Review Questions 529

Chapter 12 Migrating VBA Solutions to VSTO 531

Topics Covered in This Chapter 531

Migration Overview 531

Migration Strategies 532

Simple Migration of a Word VBA Project 534

Advanced Migration of a Word VBA Project 537

VBA and VSTO Interoperability 547

Summary 553

Review Questions 553

Chapter 13 Advanced Topics in VSTO 555

Topics Covered in This Chapter 555

ServerDocument Overview 555

Attaching and Detaching Document-Based Customizations 556

Reading and Writing the Data Cache 560

Clearing the Data Cache 571

Summary 572

Review Questions 572

Chapter 14 VSTO 2005 SE and the 2007 Microsoft Office System 575

Topics Covered in This Chapter 575

Introduction to VSTO 2005 SE 575

Creating Add-ins 584

Customizing the Ribbon 585

Creating Custom Task Panes 622

Creating a Custom Form Region 638

Summary 650

Review Questions 650

Appendix A Creating Code Snippets 651 Appendix B Creating Inspector CommandBars 657 Index 665