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What's New in Office XP Developer

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This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

With the release of Office XP Developer, Microsoft has worked hard to augment the award winning work in previous versions of Office with new features that make it possible for broader solution types to be built with Office. With this release, Microsoft has continued to improve the Office Component Object Model (COM) and to integrate Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) throughout Office. Having a consistent development language and environment greatly simplifies developers' efforts in building applications and working with the objects and the services Office provides. In addition, in this release, Microsoft has provided a broad new set of tools and services that work hand-in-hand with VBA.

Office Developer provides the productivity tools professional developers must have to build solutions faster, the integration tools to make their solutions work seamlessly with data and the Web, and the management tools to simplify deploying and managing the solutions they build with Office. Here are some of the features that have been added or enhanced in this version.

  • **Extensible Markup Language (XML) Support   **Microsoft® Excel and Microsoft® Access can natively read and write XML documents.
  • **Smart Tag Technology   **Smart Tags are COM objects that dynamically associate relevant words or terms with relevant user actions. This technology is extensible and makes it possible for e-mail, spreadsheets, and documents to "come alive".
  • **Office Web Components   **In an effort to bring the richness of Office to the Web, Microsoft has updated the Office Web Components and made it possible for broader customization and distribution of data solutions.
  • Workflow Designers   Found only in Office XP Developer, the new workflow designers for Microsoft® Exchange Server and Microsoft® SQL Server™ provide a quick and easy design surface to build workflow applications.
  • Data Access Page Designer   Updated since last version based on customer feedback, the Data Access Page Designer makes it possible for Access developers to build web-based applications leveraging the Access skills they already have.
  • Digital Dashboards   Digital Dashboards provide a simply way to quickly see all the information that is relevant to a user. By using Office XP Developer, you can build Web Parts and Digital Dashboards quickly and easily.

There are plenty more updates and improvements that make Office XP the best release of Office yet.

  • **Integrated development environment   **The development components of Office XP Developer have been integrated into a shell environment that is designed to be convenient to use and familiar to anyone who works with other Microsoft professional development tools. The new integrated development environment includes features such as the Solution Explorer, a properties window, an object browser, and a task list. In addition, a Web browser package is included that makes it possible for you to work on HTML pages and preview them in the development environment.
  • **Integrated Code Librarian   **You can use the Code Librarian to store and manage reusable code in a centralized database. You can add your own code to the existing Code Librarian database, or you can create new code databases. The Code Librarian has been redesigned for Office Developer, providing more efficient code management and functionality as part of the integrated development environment.
  • **Improved Packaging wizard   **The Packaging wizard makes it easy for you to build and deploy setup programs for your Office Developer applications. The wizard guides you through the steps of creating a setup program that contains all of the information required to install your applications on users' computers.

See Also

Getting Started with Office Developer | Developing Office Developer Applications | What's New in Office | Microsoft Office Developer Center