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Assemblies in the Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime

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When you create an Office project, Visual Studio automatically adds references to the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime assemblies that are used for the project type and the target .NET Framework of the project. There are different assemblies in the Office extensions for the .NET Framework 3.5, .NET Framework 4, and .NET Framework 4.5. For more information about the Office extensions, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime Overview.

Assemblies in the Office Extensions for the .NET Framework 4 and the .NET Framework 4.5

The following table lists the assemblies that are included in Office extensions for the .NET Framework 4 and the .NET Framework 4.5. For documentation about the namespaces and types in these assemblies, see Managed Reference (Office Development in Visual Studio).

Assembly name

Description

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common.dll

Provides the following types:

  • Types for creating Ribbon customizations and smart tags.

    Note

    Smart tags are deprecated in Excel 2010 and Word 2010.

  • Types for creating actions panes in document-level customizations and custom task panes in application-level add-ins.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel.dll

Provides interfaces that represent host items and host controls for Excel projects, and supporting types. For more information, see Automating Excel by Using Extended Objects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Outlook.dll

Provides types that you can use to create custom form regions in Outlook add-ins.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.dll

Provides interfaces that represent host items and host controls for Word projects, and supporting types. For more information, see Automating Word by Using Extended Objects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.v4.0.Framework.dll

Provides the following types:

  • Exceptions that can be thrown by the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime. 

  • Attributes you can use when creating Outlook form regions.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.dll

Provides types that are part of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime infrastructure, and are not intended to be used directly from your code.

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.dll

Provides the following types:

  • The CachedAttribute attribute and ICachedType interface, which you can use to cache data objects in a document-level customization. For more information, see Caching Data.

  • The IAddInPostDeploymentAction interface, which you can implement to run additional installation steps as the final step of the ClickOnce installer for an Office solution. For more information, see Publishing Office Solutions by Using ClickOnce.

  • Exceptions that can be thrown by the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime.

  • Other types that are part of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime infrastructure, and are not intended to be used directly from your code.

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.ServerDocument.dll

Provides the following types:

Projects that target the .NET Framework 4 or the .NET Framework 4.5 also reference the following assemblies. These assemblies are not part of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime redistributable. Instead, they are dependent assemblies that must be deployed with your solution. By default, they are copied to the build output folder for your project (the Copy Local property for these assemblies are set to True). If you deploy your project by using ClickOnce, these assemblies are included in the generated package.

Assembly name

Description

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common.v4.0.Utilities.dll

Provides the base classes for the generated ThisAddIn class in application-level projects and the generated Ribbon class in all projects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel.v4.0.Utilities.dll

Provides the following types:

  • Base classes for the generated ThisWorkbook and Sheet classes in document-level projects for Excel.

  • Windows Forms controls that you can use on worksheets in Excel projects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Outlook.v4.0.Utilities.dll

Provides base classes for the generated ThisAddIn and form region classes in Outlook projects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.v4.0.Utilities.dll

Provides the following types:

  • Base classes for the generated ThisDocument class in document-level projects for Word.

  • Windows Forms controls that you can use on documents in Word projects.

Assemblies in the Office Extensions for the .NET Framework 3.5

The following table lists the assemblies that are included in the Office extensions for the .NET Framework 3.5. For documentation about the namespaces and classes in these assemblies, see the following reference section in the Visual Studio 2008 documentation: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=160658.

Assembly name

Description

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common.v9.0.dll

Provides the following types:

  • The Microsoft.Office.Tools.AddIn base class for application-level add-ins.

  • Classes for creating Ribbon customizations and smart tags.

    Note

    Smart tags are deprecated in Excel 2010 and Word 2010.

  • Classes for creating actions panes in document-level customizations and custom task panes in application-level add-ins.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel.v9.0.dll

Provides host items and host controls for Excel solutions. For more information, see Automating Excel by Using Extended Objects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Outlook.v9.0.dll

Provides classes that you can use to create custom form regions in Outlook add-ins.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.v9.0.dll

Provides host items and host controls for Word solutions. For more information, see Automating Word by Using Extended Objects.

Microsoft.Office.Tools.v9.0.dll

Provides the following types:

  • The Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.RemoteBindableComponent class, which provides the data binding capabilities for host controls in document-level customizations.

  • Other types that are part of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime infrastructure, and are not intended to be used directly from your code.

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.v9.0.dll

Provides the following types:

  • The Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.CachedAttribute attribute and Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.ICachedType interface, which you can use to cache data objects in a document-level customization. For more information, see Caching Data.

  • Exceptions that can be thrown by the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime.

  • Other types that are part of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime infrastructure, and are not intended to be used directly from your code.

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.v10.0.dll

Provides the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Deployment.IAddInPostDeploymentAction interface, which you can implement to run additional installation steps as the final step of the ClickOnce installer for an Office solution. For more information, see Advanced Office Solution Deployment.

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.ServerDocument.v10.0.dll

Provides the following types:

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.Runtime.v10.0.dll

Provides the following types:

  • The Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.Runtime.Security.AddInSecurityEntry and Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.Runtime.Security.UserInclusionList classes, which you can use to create user inclusion list entries to grant trust to Office solutions that target the .NET Framework 3.5.

  • Other types that are part of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime infrastructure, and are not intended to be used directly from your code.

See Also

Concepts

Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime Overview

Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime Installation Scenarios