Getting Started (Office Development in Visual Studio)

This section contains topics that help you get started using the Microsoft Office developer tools in Visual Studio.

In This Section

• Office Solutions Development Overview
  Provides background information for developing Office solutions in Visual Studio.

• What's New in Visual Studio Tools for Office
  Describes new Office development features and features that have changed since the previous version of Visual Studio.

• Changes to the Design of Office Projects that Target the .NET Framework 4 or the .NET Framework 4.5
  Describes the new design of Office projects that target the .NET Framework 4 or the .NET Framework 4.5, and lists breaking changes to code in Office projects that you migrate to the .NET Framework 4 or the .NET Framework 4.5.

• Features Available by Office Application and Project Type
  Describes which applications and projects are required to use Office development features such as Ribbon extensibility, custom task panes, actions panes, and form regions.

• Configuring a Computer to Develop Office Solutions
  Provides information and steps for installing the Office development tools, the runtime that enables Office solutions to run on end user computers, and the Office primary interop assemblies.

• Getting Started Programming Document-Level Customizations for Excel
  Provides a summary of the important concepts needed to use Visual Studio to create document-level customizations for Excel.

• Getting Started Programming Document-Level Customizations for Word
  Provides a summary of the important concepts needed to use Visual Studio to create document-level customizations for Word.

• Getting Started Programming Application-Level Add-Ins
  Provides a summary of the important concepts needed to use Visual Studio to create application-level add-ins for Microsoft Office applications.

• VBA and Office Solutions in Visual Studio Compared
  Describes the relative strengths of Visual Basic for Applications and the Office development tools in Visual Studio for developing Office solutions.

• Common Tasks in Office Programming
  Provides links to topics that can help solve common problems.

Related Sections

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

• Upgrading and Migrating Office Solutions
  Provides information about how to migrate projects that were created by using earlier versions of Visual Studio to the current release.

• Architecture of Office Solutions in Visual Studio
  Describes the components of Office solutions and how they work at design time and run time.

• 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 implement code and user interface customizations in an Office project.

• Securing Office Solutions
  Provides information about security requirements for Office solutions.

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

• Visual Studio Tools for Office Technical Articles and Visual How Tos
  Contains links into videos and technical articles about Office solutions created by using Visual Studio.