Word 2003 Task Pane

[Alex]

Hi Guys

I've been testing Office 2003 Professional for may company
over the past few weeks (quietly impressed).

One of the questions that my bosses have been asking is,
is it possible to customise the Task Panes in Word, Excel
and all the other office applications, in light of the
fact the product's XML compatability has been greatly
improved.

Examples of ideas be banded about are:
1. Can all the company's templates be dislayed within the
New Document section of the task pane.
2. Can default dialog boxes such as page setup etc... be
made to open in the task pane, thus making it possible for
the user to still see their complete document, spreadsheet
etc.. whilst changing settings.

These are just a few examples of their questions but I
think you'll get the idea, so if there's anyone out there
that can help me answer these questions I'd be most
grateful.

regards

Alex

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Alex,

One of the questions that my bosses have been asking is,
is it possible to customise the Task Panes in Word, Excel
and all the other office applications, in light of the
fact the product's XML compatability has been greatly
improved.

What can be done with TaskPanes is very limited. For (1), see
the information I got from another discussion, a while back,
pasted below my signature.

Other than that, there's only the SmartDocument
functionality. This builds on SmartTags. You build a DLL that
links code with XML tags that have been inserted into a
document. The DLL code can manipulate the document, and
display things in the "document actions" task pane, based on
where the cursor is in the document (which tag).

Examples of ideas be banded about are:
1. Can all the company's templates be dislayed within the
New Document section of the task pane.
2. Can default dialog boxes such as page setup etc... be
made to open in the task pane, thus making it possible for
the user to still see their complete document, spreadsheet
etc.. whilst changing settings.

Cindy Meister

--

You can add your own links to the various sections and you
can hide all the links to the Web. Administrators will have
complete control over these customizations through group
policy (the Office Resource Kit will include all
the details).

First, there is UI to hide the the Office on Microsoft.com
sections; Tools Options, General tab, Service Options button,
then click "Never" in the Online Content section. Restart
Word (close Outlook too). Now you'll notice the Home, New
Document, Help task panes all have Office on Microsoft.com
sections removed. For customers and corporations who don't
want our services (or don't have Internet access) this is the
mode they would likely prefer.

Second, to add your own hyperlinks to the Home or New
Document task panes use the object model function
Application.NewDocument.Add (Filename, msoFileNewSection,
DisplayName, msoFileNewAction). This function is the same as
with Office XP so the current help should be accurate. But
just in case, here's a brief description of the parameters

Application.NewDocument.Add (Filename, msoFileNewSection,
DisplayName, msoFileNewAction) Filename is a string in quotes
that takes a URL. If you chose Filename, when you click on
the link, it would open the file. Filename is required.

msoFileNewSection is an enum and it can take the values:
msoOpenDocument (Open section of the Getting Started task
pane), msoNew (New section for the File New task pane),
msoNewfromTemplate (Template section for the File New task
pane), msoNewfromExistingFile (Recent Templates section for
the File New task pane), msoBottomSection (Very bottom of the
File New task pane)

DisplayName is the name of the string in quotes that shows up
in the workpane.

msoFileNewAction is an enum and it has the values msoEditFile
(open in native app), msoCreateNewFile (uses the file as a
template for a new document), msoOpenFile (open in IE,
typically used for hyperlinks, you can also open folders this
way)

 

[Alex]

Thanks Cindy

That's exactly what I needed to know, you've been a great
help

regards

Alex