Kathleen's Weblog : Office

Embedding Type Information from Microsoft Office Assemblies

kmcgrath — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:21:46 GMT

Mick Alberts, a technical editor on the Visual Studio User Education team, created a video demo about embedding type information into an application that uses Automation objects from Microsoft Office. This video is based on a Visual Studio Help topic.

Take a look at the video: Embedding Type Information from Microsoft Office Assemblies

I’ll be posting more video demos based on Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 documentation over the next several weeks. If you haven’t already done so, please give us feedback on the documentation by taking the Visual Studio and .NET Framework Content Survey

--Kathleen

VSTO: My Favorite Feature -- Even Better in Beta 2!

kmcgrath — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:53:00 GMT

Recently, I posted an entry about my favorite VSTO feature: the Ribbon Designer. In Beta 2 of VSTO, there are a lot more controls available, so I've created a new video that shows you how to use some of these controls.

View Video Download Video
(Right-click link)

--Kathleen

VSTO and Groove

kmcgrath — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:50:00 GMT

Paul Stubbs just posted an interesting blog entry about how to tie Groove and Outlook together using VSTO. Paul shows you how to call into Microsoft Office Groove 2007 (a collaboration software program) from an Outlook 2007 add-in.

To learn more, see Groove'n with VSTO.

-- Kathleen

Visual How to: Automating PowerPoint 2007 Using a Custom Task Pane

kmcgrath — Wed, 02 May 2007 18:21:40 GMT

Learn how to to create a custom task pane that automates Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. In this Visual How to, Harry shows you how to create a custom task pane that inserts dates into a slide when the user clicks a MonthCalendar control that is on the custom task pane.

-- Kathleen

Visual How to: Automating a Word 2007 Document Using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office SE Ribbon Support

kmcgrath — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 06:19:51 GMT

Learn how to add buttons to the Microsoft Office Fluent Ribbon in Word 2007 that enable you to interact with the document. This Visual How to provides a link to the documentation in the MSDN libary as well as a corresponding video.

Enjoy!

--Kathleen

Visual How To: Adding Custom Task Panes to 2007 Office Applications

kmcgrath — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 03:34:29 GMT

Check out the new Visual How to video and learn how to add a task pane to applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system using VSTO 2005 SE. The Visual How to also has links to corresponding documentation in the MSDN Library.

Want to see more Visual How to videos? Send us your feedback by adding a comment (and rating the video). You can add comments here on the blog too. We look at your feedback and use it to improve the videos and documentation.

-- Kathleen

VSTO For Mere Mortals Video: Customizing Built-in Tabs on the Ribbon

kmcgrath — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 04:55:00 GMT

This screencast shows you how to customize the Ribbon in Word 2007, by adding a new group of controls to the Home tab.

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(Right-click link)

The video is 03:10 minutes in length, and 8 MB in size.

--Kathleen

VSTO For Mere Mortals Video: Customizing the Ribbon with VSTO 2005 SE

kmcgrath — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:31:00 GMT

This screencast shows you how to customize the Ribbon in Excel using VSTO 2005 SE. You'll see how to use the new Ribbon support item in Visual Studio to add a group and toggleButton to the Add-ins tab of the Ribbon, and how to further customize it.

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(Right-click link)

The video is 04:28 minutes in length, and 14MB in size.

--Kathleen

VSTO for Mere Mortals Video: Converting an Actions Pane Solution to a Custom Task Pane Solution

kmcgrath — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:59:00 GMT

This screencast shows you how to convert an Actions Pane solution in Excel 2003 to a Custom Task Pane solution in Excel 2007. This enables the task pane to be available to any workbook that you open.

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(Right-click link)

The video is 04:37 minutes in length, and 7MB in size.

--Kathleen

VSTO for Mere Mortals Video: VSTO 2005 vs VSTO 2005 SE

kmcgrath — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:40:00 GMT

In this screencast, I describe the differences between VSTO 2005 and VSTO 2005 SE.

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(Right-click link)

The video is 05:43 minutes in length, and 8 MB in size.

--Kathleen

VSTO for Mere Mortals Video Series

kmcgrath — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:56:00 GMT

The VSTO for Mere Mortals book is now available! Co-author Paul Stubbs and I will be creating a number of video screencasts that demonstrate Office development concepts as described in the book.

The videos will not be posted in any particular order, but there will be some overviews, walkthroughs, beginning content, and advanced. My first video is an Introduction to the Actions Pane.

View Video Download Video
(right-click link)

The video is 04:30 minutes in length and 5.8 MB in size.

--Kathleen

Developer Map for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Poster Available

kmcgrath — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:04:00 GMT

In an earlier post, I pointed to Erika's document map that linked to related documentation. Erika recently announced the availability of Developer Posters for the 2007 Microsoft Office System. You can download the posters here.

Be sure to check them out!

--Kathleen

New Office 2007 Files Formats

kmcgrath — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 01:17:00 GMT

If you haven't yet installed the 2007 Microsoft Office system, you probably don't have a need to learn about the new file formats ... or do you? On my home laptop I haven't yet installed Office 2007 because I'm still finalizing edits in the chapters of my VSTO for Mere Mortals book, which I've written using Word 2003. I was recently sent a PowerPoint presentation to review, but found that I couldn't open it because it was in the new PowerPoint 2007 file format. I had to install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats, and then I could view it.

If you want to see a list of all the new file formats (.docx, ppsm, .xltm) and a mapping of what they mean, the link above has a full listing.

--Kathleen

Finding Developer Documentation for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

kmcgrath — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:42:00 GMT

Erika Ehrli recently blogged about how Office products and technologies relate to each other, and how to find information about each of these technologies quickly.

Want to learn about Managed Add-Ins, the ribbon, or the Office XML File Formats? Take a look at the Developer Map she designed, then click on any area of the map, and it will take you to the corresponding technical documentation on MSDN. Nice!

This is a draft version of the map, and she plans to provide a more detailed version soon.

--Kathleen

Office Development Podcast

kmcgrath — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 20:29:00 GMT

Paul Stubbs recently participated in a podcast with Andrew Coates to discuss Office development. You can listen to the podcast here:

Microsoft Developer Show #07 - Building Applications that Integrate with Office

--Kathleen