Professional VSTO 2005: Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

Professional Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office satisfies the need to write enterprise software based on Office by delivering practical solutions for those seeking to port existing functionality to VSTO. The book focuses on code and implementation, not theory, with code examples presented in both VB and C#.

The book is especially written for enterprise developers - VBA or COM Interop savvy - who need to leverage the power and productivity of VSTO today. .NET developers seeking to explore VSTO as a potential solution will also find ample material that suits their needs.

This book covers VSTO 2005 in detail. The approach focuses on the major components that form the suite with the exception that InfoPath is not covered. All other components benefit from an exploration of the key objects that are most likely to be used in common programming scenarios. This book is organized into chapters that present the building blocks of VSTO first. Microsoft Excel and its Range objects form the cornerstone of range manipulation across the VSTO suite. For that reason, the first few chapters explain these basic concepts. Subsequent chapters use these building blocks as a starting point so it is important to be familiar with these concepts before skipping to the back of the book.

Once you gain a complete understanding of the Excel Range object in Chapters 2 and 3, you can apply that knowledge to the remaining chapters. In fact, Microsoft Word, Charts and Pivot Table manipulation are all based on the Excel Range object. (VSTO contains a potent charting engine second to none. And this book explores every facet of charting.) The obvious benefit of this clever architecture is that it significantly reduces the learning curve for those who wish to adopt this relatively new technology. And this book is designed to show you how to exploit this architecture.

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office (VSTO) supports Word, Excel®, and Outlook® and allows developers to build robust Office applications in both the C# and VB languages. This practical guide shows you how to leverage the power of VSTO to write enterprise software targeting Office 2003. Even if you''re not entirely familiar with VSTO, you''ll find this book to be an indispensable resource to building your knowledge of this new technology.

Beginning chapters review basic concepts and serve as building blocks upon which the remaining chapters are built. Working examples provide solutions to common programming requirement issues so that even if you are a seasoned developer, you''ll still find many useful techniques and strategies to solving enterprise-level software problems from an Office perspective using VSTO.

What you will learn from this book

• Maximizing Office 2003''s power and flexibility in enterprise software
• Automating Office objects from Visual Studio and Windows Console applications
• Extracting functionality and performance from Word and Excel
• Creating exciting Excel charts and powerful PivotTable® reports
• Avoiding common pitfalls while porting VBA code to VSTO as well as work-arounds to technical limitations in the Office API

Who this book is for

This book is for developers who are planning to adopt VSTO as an enterprise solution. A familiarity with Object Oriented concepts is required. An understanding of Visual Studio .NET is recommended, but not required. Recent .NET adopters with a VBA background will find this book especially useful.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

Alvin Bruney is a senior software engineer for Indigo Books and Music. His previous development jobs included spearheading the .NET architecture for NetworkIP, a telecommunications provider, and as a programmer with Intuit. He self-published a book on Office Web Components, and frequently writes articles for ASP.NET Professional magazine, MSDN, and other online venues. He is also a Microsoft .NET MVP and is well known in the 10 newsgroups he monitors.