Create Add-ins and Customizations for Office by using Visual Studio

You can use the Microsoft Office developer tools in Visual Studio to create .NET Framework applications that extend Office 2013 and Microsoft Office 2010. These applications are also named Office solutions.

The Office developer tools provide features that help you create Office solutions to suit a variety of business needs. The tools include project templates to help you create Office solutions by using Visual Basic or Visual C#, and visual designers that help you create custom user interfaces for your Office solutions.

For the latest information about Office development, see the following development centers on MSDN:

• The Office Development with Visual Studio Developer Portal contains links to product information, code samples, videos, and community resources about using Visual Studio to customize Office applications as part of your solutions.

• The Microsoft Office Developer Center contains links to technical articles, code samples, downloads, community information, support, and other documentation about Office customizations and Office Business Applications (OBAs).

In This Section

• Getting Started (Office Development in Visual Studio)
  Provides links to information about how to configure a development computer to create Office solutions, how to begin creating Office solutions, and what is new for Office development in Visual Studio.

• Upgrading and Migrating Office Solutions
  Provides links to information about the upgrade process for projects created by using earlier versions of Visual Studio.

• Architecture of Office Solutions in Visual Studio
  Provides links to information about how Office solutions work, including information about document-level customizations and application-level add-ins.

• Designing and Creating Office Solutions
  Provides information about how to create an Office project and configure your project in Visual Studio.

• Developing Office Solutions
  Provides information about how to use managed code with Office solutions, including how to customize the Office user interface, work with data, and troubleshoot problems.

• Excel Solutions
  Provides information about how to automate Excel, create Excel solutions, and understand globalization issues specific to Excel.

• InfoPath Solutions
  Provides information about how to create form templates and add-ins for InfoPath.

• Outlook Solutions
  Provides information about how to automate Outlook and create Outlook add-ins and form regions.

• PowerPoint Solutions
  Provides information about how to automate PowerPoint and create PowerPoint add-ins.

• Project Solutions
  Provides information about how to automate Microsoft Office Project and create Project add-ins.

• Visio Solutions
  Provides information about how to automate Visio and create Visio add-ins.

• Word Solutions
  Provides information about how to automate Word and create Word solutions.

• Building Office Solutions
  Provides information about the differences between building Office projects and other types of projects in Visual Studio.

• Debugging Office Projects
  Provides information about the differences between debugging Office projects and other types of projects in Visual Studio.

• Securing Office Solutions
  Provides information about how security features work in Office solutions.

• Deploying Office Solutions
  Provides information about how to make Office solutions available to your users, and the major issues to consider when you choose a deployment method.

• Office Development Samples and Walkthroughs
  Provides links to sample applications and topics that give step-by-step instructions for performing common tasks.

• General Reference (Office Development in Visual Studio)
  Provides links to detailed information about Office Primary Interop Assemblies, manifests, user interface elements, and error messages.

• Managed Reference (Office Development in Visual Studio)
  Provides links to information about API namespaces and types that are used in Office projects that target the .NET Framework 4. For API reference documentation about the namespaces and types that are used in Office projects that target the .NET Framework 3.5, see the following reference section in the Visual Studio 2008 documentation: 2007 System Managed Reference.

• Unmanaged API Reference (Office Development in Visual Studio)
  Contains links to information about COM interfaces that you can use to perform actions such as load and unload managed add-ins in Office applications.

Related Sections

• Office Development with Visual Studio Developer Portal
  Provides additional resources such as technical articles, videos, and blogs.

• Visual Studio Developer Center
  Provides additional Visual Studio resources such as technical articles, videos, and blogs.

• Office Business Applications Developer Portal
  Provides information about Office Business Applications (OBAs) and how to build them by using the Office system Platform.

• Microsoft Office Development Section of the MSDN Library
  The area of the MSDN Library where you can find articles and reference documentation about developing solutions for several versions of Office (not specific to Office development using Visual Studio).

• Application Development in Visual Studio
  Contains links to topics that explain how you can use Visual Studio to design, develop, debug, and deploy Web applications, XML Web services, and traditional client applications.

• .NET Framework Programming in Visual Studio
  Discusses application development with the .NET Framework in Visual Basic and Visual C#.