VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming

Vivek Thangaswamy

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781847197528
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Information Technology
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

With the arrival of Visual Studio Tools for Office 3.0 (VSTO), developers can now program Microsoft Office from the .NET framework. There are huge books in the market that give loads of unnecessary information but are of no real help to brand-new Office developers. Wouldn't it be great to have a precise book that simply covers the basics and introduces programming Office 2007 with VSTO using the latest version of Visual Studio? This is that book.

VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming shows you how to write Office 2007 applications with Visual Studio Tools for Office 3.0. Learn how to automate tasks in InfoPath, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Visio, and Project 2007 with greater programming power and flexibility than was available from the VBA language. With this book and the mastery of VSTO you will learn, Office will no longer be an application to you; it will be a platform for developing custom applications.

VSTO 3 is the most recent version of VSTO, making use of Visual Studio 2008, and working with Office 2007. This book shows how VSTO puts Office automation into the hands of developers, allowing them to use the power of the .NET framework to automate Office applications thus increasing the speed of the applications, their security, and the opportunity to use other parts of the .NET Framework such as its data handling capabilities.

This book builds a solid programming foundation in VSTO for brand-new Office developers. You will leave behind the world of VBA programming and take your first steps into the powerful and exciting world of using C# to create Office 2007 applications. Packed with examples and covering all the main Office applications, this book will have you creating fully featured Office extensions before you know it.

A step-by-step guide for brand-new Office developers who want to explore programming with VSTO

Approach

This book contains complete step-by-step instructions and simple explanations about VSTO programming of entire Office applications. It covers the concepts of VSTO, VSTO architecture, its features, and versions using practical examples, to help beginners and intermediate developers develop real-world Office applications. Separate chapters cover programming InfoPath, Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

Who this book is for

This book is aimed at .NET developers, familiar with C#, who want to get to grips with programming Office 2007. The book will also be useful for those of you who already have experience with VBA and programming Office, but are ready to take the next step into the more powerful world of Office programming with VSTO.

VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming

Vivek Thangaswamy

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Table of Contents

VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code for the book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)

What is Microsoft VSTO?

Why VSTO 3.0?

Safer managed code extensions

Data caching

Feature customization

User Interface customization

Smart tags

WPF support

Visual designers

Security improvements

Maintainability

What's new in VSTO 3.0?

VSTO architecture

Development approaches

Document-oriented approach

Application-oriented approach

VSTO development and deployment

Creating Office applications through VSTO

VSTO development environment

Package

Visual Studio integration

Creating VSTO solutions

Viewing IDE Windows

Debugging

What can we expect in the next version?

Summary

2. Microsoft Office InfoPath Programming

Microsoft Office InfoPath

InfoPath 2007 in Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2008 InfoPath solution overview

The VSTO problem when installing Office InfoPath 2007

Creating our first example

Available customization features

Data validation

Custom actions on save

Switching views

Object model in InfoPath solution

Understanding the Microsoft Office InfoPath object model

Understanding the InfoPath object model functional area

Application

WindowCollection

Window

XmlFormCollection

XmlForm

View

ViewInfoCollection

Using events in InfoPath

Form-level events

An example of the solution xsi:nil="true" attribute

Loading event

Using the ViewSwitched event

Using the ContextChanged event

Using the Submit event

Using the VersionUpgrade event

Using the Save event

Sign event

Merge event

Xml events

Changed event

Changing event

Validating event

Control events

Clicked event

Writing event validation for an expense report form

Manipulating a data source

Fetch node value from main data source

Assigning a value to a node in the main data source

Adding or creating a new node in the main data source

Deleting or removing nodes from the main data source

Populating Microsoft Office InfoPath with Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Working with Custom Task Panes

Managed code

Custom Task Pane

Creating an InfoPath Task Pane

Creating an InfoPath add-in project using Visual Studio 2008

InfoPath and SharePoint workflow

Summary

3. Microsoft Office Word Programming

Microsoft Office Word 2007 solutions

Application-level solutions versus document-level solutions

Creating document-level solutions

Publishing solution deployment

Working with objects and documents

Application object

Document object

Range object

Selection object

Tables collection object

Working with key objects

Inserting text in Word 2007 document

Selecting text in a Word 2007 document

Creating a table in a Word 2007 document

Working with Word templates

Actions Pane: Document-level customization

Creating a Custom Actions Pane for Microsoft Office Word 2007

Managing the Actions Pane

Designing the Actions Pane

Application-level solutions

Task Pane: Application-level customization

What is the Task Pane?

Custom Task Pane

Creating a Custom Task Pane for Microsoft Office Word 2007

Programming in Word

Word host items

Word host controls

Adding controls to a document

Adding an ActiveX control to Microsoft Office Word 2007 programmatically

Data binding to host controls

Simple data binding

Complex data binding

What is LINQ?

Using LINQ in Word 2007 with VSTO 3.0 and Visual Studio 2008

Customization

Ribbon menu

Adding controls to menus

Toolbar (Quick Access Toolbar)

Adding controls to toolbars

Summary

4. Microsoft Office Excel Programming

Programming in Excel

Hello World example using Visual Studio 2008

Manipulation

Data manipulation

Reading worksheet cells

Opening a text file as a workbook using VSTO

Connecting with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 database

Worksheet manipulation

Working with ranges

Cells

Unions

Named ranges

Excel host items

The workbook host item

The worksheet host item

The ChartSheet host item

Excel host controls

Chart control

The ListObject control

The NamedRange control

The XMLMappedRange control

The SelectionChange event

Creating Excel smart tags with VSTO

Excel formulae

Regular expressions

Excel data protection

Workbook protection

Worksheet protection

Summary

5. Microsoft Office Outlook Programming

Microsoft Office Outlook object model overview

Customization using VSTO

Menus in Outlook

Toolbars in Outlook

Outlook form regions support

Manipulation

Folders

Contacts

Email messages

Working with Appointments

Working with meetings

Creating a Ribbon menu for Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 data interaction with Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Summary

6. Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Visio, and Project Programming

Programming PowerPoint 2007

PowerPoint 2007 object model

Creating a presentation at runtime

Dynamically add a slide and set title text in the presentation

Set the presentation theme

Ribbons in PowerPoint

Ribbon Visual Designer

Creating a Ribbon

Programming Visio 2007

Visio 2007 object model

Dynamically creating a new Visio document

Adding shapes to a document at runtime

Adding a page as a background for another page

Set the document theme

Creating a Commandbar

Programming Project 2007

Creating a Project and adding a task dynamically

Creating menus for Microsoft Project

Creating a Commandbar for Microsoft Project

Summary

Index

VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming

Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold ithout warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: March 2009

Production Reference: 1040309

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton,

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847197-52-8

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Parag Kadam (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Vivek Thangaswamy

Reviewers

Helmut Obertanner

Maarten van Stam

N Satheesh Kumar

Senior Acquisition Editor

Douglas Paterson

Development Editor

Dilip Venkatesh

Technical Editor

Rakesh Shejwal

Copy Editor

Sumathi Sridhar

Indexer

Monica Ajmera

Production Editorial...

Table of contents

• VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming