‘HowTo samples’ category archive
Customizing Word main menu, context menus and Backstage view: C# sample
Pieter van der Westhuizen | July 18th, 2013
Microsoft Word, like all the Office applications, introduced the Ribbon UI in Office 2007. However, Office 2003 still has a pretty big install base. This means that you will need to cater for the different user interface components that accompany Word 2003 and older.... Read the rest of this entry →
Customizing Word User Interface: What is and isn’t customizable
Ty Anderson | July 17th, 2013
But for the advanced user who views Word as essential to their daily grind at the office… Word needs to do some adjusting to the user. This user has well defined grooves in their workday. They work spans across multiple teams, departments, companies, and applications. Microsoft Word can be a player in these processes and you can put Word in the best position possible. But how?... Read the rest of this entry →
Word add-in development in Visual Studio: Application and base objects
Ty Anderson | July 8th, 2013
In this article, the first in a series of Word development topics, I'll cover Microsoft Word application and base objects. And, as is our tradition, I'll provide relevant code samples for Word 2013 - 2000 you can copy and paste into your solutions... Read the rest of this entry →
Automating Word Mail Merge in Visual Studio – C# sample
Pieter van der Westhuizen | July 5th, 2013
The Mail Merge functionality in Microsoft Word is one of the most powerful features that enables you to create, amongst other things, simple form letters. It is, however, one of the tricky things to get your head around when trying to automate it in either an Office add-in or a stand-alone application using the Word Object model... Read the rest of this entry →
Developing powerful Outlook add-ins with Visual Studio (VB.NET, C#)
Ty Anderson | July 2nd, 2013
With the recent Beginning Outlook Development series complete, we thought it would be a good idea to do a demo that shows how easy/simple/relatively painless it is to build a powerful Outlook add-in with Visual Studio ... Read the rest of this entry →
Customizing built-in Office Ribbon groups – C# Excel add-in example
Pieter van der Westhuizen | June 21st, 2013
Customizing the built-in Microsoft Office ribbon groups is something that many people have tried but they usually hit a brick wall in the process. Unfortunately, it is not possible to customize the built-in ribbon groups, however, you can create your custom Office ribbon group and "replace" the built-in group with your own... Read the rest of this entry →
Working with Outlook tasks: how to create, get and delete Task and To-Do items
Pieter van der Westhuizen | June 12th, 2013
Outlook tasks are a great way to keep track of things you need to do. I use it every single day! A task item is a standard Outlook type and by default all tasks are flagged for follow-up when created. When any items such as an e-mail, task or contact are flagged for follow-up it automatically becomes a to-do item and is visible in your To-do bar... Read the rest of this entry →
Working with Outlook calendar (appointment and meeting items)
Ty Anderson | June 10th, 2013
Yeah sure, email is front and center with Outlook. But right behind it and ready to steal the show is the Outlook calendar. If you aren't looking at email, I bet you are looking at your calendar to see if you can meet at such-and-such time on such-and-such date... Read the rest of this entry →
Working with Outlook mail items: how to create, delete, access & enumerate
Ty Anderson | June 3rd, 2013
Mail items are the featured player of Outlook… email! Sure, contacts and appointments are regulars but email receives the most attention. We are addicted to the stuff. And as an Outlook plug-in developer, you need to know the basics.... Read the rest of this entry →
Working with Outlook Accounts, Stores, Folders and Items
Pieter van der Westhuizen | May 31st, 2013
Any user of Microsoft Outlook will tell you that you cannot use Outlook without first setting up an account. This account can either be an Exchange server, POP or IMAP account, although Outlook can support any MAPI style account too.... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook 2013 view regions: Explorer pane, Navigation Pane, ToDo bar, Preview pane
Ty Anderson | May 24th, 2013
When building an Outlook add-in you will definitely confront scenarios that require custom forms. In these scenarios, you must answer two questions. What does the form need to do? Where does the form need to display?
... Read the rest of this entry →
Customizing Outlook main menu, context menus and Backstage view
Ty Anderson | May 13th, 2013
Often, the focus of an Outlook add-in centers around a custom ribbon or form region. I think this makes sense. They are sexy, upfront, and what everyone wants to see. But they are not enough. A good Outlook solution should provide other user interface customizations that allow the user to execute your solution's logic. These other methods are, arguably, the less-sexy, more utilitarian UI components. I am referring of course to the main menu, context menus, and the backstage.... Read the rest of this entry →
Outlook views: How to create a custom view for calendar, task, mail items
Pieter van der Westhuizen | April 18th, 2013
Outlook views allow you to group, sort and view all the different types of Outlook data within the View panel of the Outlook Explorer window. Outlook comes with a few built-in views for each Outlook item type (mail, task, calendar, etc.) which can be accessed via the View tab... Read the rest of this entry →
HowTo: Create add-ins for Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 with a shared ribbon tab
Eugene Astafiev | November 5th, 2012
Office developers need to merge the UI of their add-ins into a single ribbon tab. Just imagine the following scenario: a user wants to install a few COM add-ins from the same vendor. Are they going to get a separate ribbon tab for each add-in's UI?... Read the rest of this entry →
How To: Customize the context ribbon of Outlook 2013 inline response
Eugene Astafiev | October 19th, 2012
After Microsoft published the Preview version of Office 2013 we started to receive lots of questions regarding built-in ribbon control IDs. Developers wanted to support the new Microsoft Office version but couldn't find the required information on MSDN. ... Read the rest of this entry →
How to customize context / right click menu of Excel 2013, 2010 and lower: C# sample
Dmitry Kostochko | August 22nd, 2012
Right-click menus of Microsoft Office applications are a very convenient option for the end-user to interact with the host application. And for us, COM add-in developers, creating a custom menu for our users could be just a piece of cake... Read the rest of this entry →