Latest Office Automation Techniques

[ma1achai]

***Sorry for cross-posting this message... I posted in excel programming
forum before realizing that this forum existed.***

howdy... I have been out of the Office loop for a few years, and I'm
wondering what is the most 'state of the art' way to implement an Excel
Add-in. In particular, I will be dealing with Excel versions 2003 and later,
and using .NET 3.0 (or 3.5 if needed).

When I was last involved in Add-In development, the best implementation
involved using C# and hooking in to Excel through the CommandBars actions to
instantiate the COM addin. I have noticed that Visual Studio 2008 has some
builtin project types dealing with office products... are these soley for use
with Office 2007 products, or would 2003 work with them as well.

I will definitely appreciate it if someone in the know would point me in the
right direction.. .I would hate to get started on a project, only to find out
that there are much better alternatives out there now. Also, if you know of
any web resources available that will help me get started, they are
definitely appreciated.

-jp

 

[Stephen D. Oliver]

I would highly recommend that you take a look at the excellent VSTO
information available at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735662.aspx (for VSTO 2005 SE) and
at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d2tx7z6d.aspx (for VSTO 3.0).
Visual Studio Team System 2008 (with VSTO 3.0) has installed templates for
creating Excel 2003 Add-ins as well as Excel 2007 Add-ins (and Workbook and
Template projects for both versions as well).

-steveO