Getting Started: Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) 2005

[sheeeng]

Getting Started (Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005)

Summary: This section will help you get started using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System to develop solutions that take advantage of Microsoft Office 2003.

Microsoft Office 2003 offers a platform that provides many possibilities for application development using managed code with Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework provide Rapid Application Development (RAD) programming capabilities that make it easy to begin creating Office-based solutions to suit a variety of business needs.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/23cw517s

Quoted from MSDN 2 Library...

Erm...Can anyone tell me what is the differences between MSDN & MSDN 2?

I find this very useful for beginner like me to take up learning VSTO.

Btw, those with 32-bits Windows might want to play around with VSTO 2005.

[Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO 2005) Redistributable Package (x86)]
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

You must also install the Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0 redistributable package before you install VSTO 2005 v2.0 redistributable package.

[Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86)]
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

What do you think about this new VSTO 2005?

-Feel free to comment-

[jimliu]

Thank you very much Sheeng, and I am glad to see someone who knows Chinenese being one of the experts there to provide timely answers for people who need help.

I have been longing to see something that supports a Java-like language that can develop solutions for Office products. Now VSTO seems to be it. I will try it out.

best regards
Jim

[jimliu]

HI Sheeng,

Does any version of VSTO support Office 2000 or earlier versions of Office?

Thank you.

Jim

[sheeeng]

Check this out.

[How to: Prepare End User Computers to Run Office Solutions]
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...US,VS.80).aspx

It explains the step to use VSTO 2005.

[Creating Office 2000 Solutions using .NET - The Code Project - .NET]
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/Of...singDotnet.asp

But according to the links above, you cannot use Office 2000 with VSTO. But some adjustment can be made to improve its use on Office 2000. Check it out for yourself.

Quote: "Traditionally, developers have used VBA to create Office based applications. When .NET came along with all its goodies, they felt the need for creating document-centric solutions with .NET. To address this need, Microsoft released Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office (VSTO), an add-on to Visual Studio .NET 2003 to create managed applications with Word 2003 or Excel 2003.
Visual Studio Tools for Office 2003 (VSTO) is a great tool to build Office solutions in .NET. Unfortunately, Office 2000 users cannot use this tool. This article is an attempt to fill that void. It shows you how to build Office 2000 solutions using Visual Studio .NET 2003. I have tried to keep the code as close as possible to VSTO 2003 so that you can easily migrate to Office 2003."

HTH.