How to develop Office add-ins in Visual Studio
Tips for C#, VB.NET and C++ developers

Add-in Express™
for Microsoft® Office and Delphi® VCL

Get the best platform for building version-neutral, fast and easy deployable plug-ins by using Add-in Express projects templates, visual designers, components and wizards in combination with a perfect Delphi compiler.

Supported Office extensions
COM add-ins, Outlook plug-ins, smart tags, Excel RTD and UDF

Overview Customers say Add-in Express blogs

This technology is now available for our custom development services only. Based on the Add-in Express for Office core, it is designed for building custom-tailored Office add-ins with far less coding than you usually have to do. Plus, it includes all Add-in Express features such as True RAD, visual designers, Outlook view and form regions, etc.

Extensions: VSTO-based application-level Office add-ins
Applications: Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, InfoPath
Office versions: 2003, 2007, 2010 (x86 and x64)
IDE: VSTO 2005 SE, 2008, 2010; VB.NET, C#

Overview Outlook-specific features

Add-in Express™
for Internet Explorer® and Microsoft® .net

Use this visual tool to create thread-safe, secure, isolated, deployable and context-sensitive Internet Explorer add-ons.

Use visual designers and components to customize the IE interface with your own buttons, menu items, context menus, side-bars etc.

Overview Customers say Add-in Express blogs

Add-in Express™ Regions
for Microsoft® Outlook® and VSTO

Use this VSTO extension to develop advanced view and form regions for 17 different areas of the main Outlook Explorer window and all Outlook Inspector windows.

Supported extensions
Application-level Outlook add-ins

Overview Basic concepts Form regions View regions

Designer
for Visual Studio® and WiX Toolset

This is an extension for Visual Studio that allows developers to quickly create WiX-based setup projects in a familiar Visual Studio way.

The Designer for WiX Toolset lets you forget the plain Windows Installer XML and concentrate on your deployment logic. It integrates several editors with the Visual Studio IDE and provides a set of vdproj designers to configure the file system, registry, user interface, custom actions, launch conditions and more for your setup projects.

Overview

This technology is now available for our custom development services only. This visual toolkit allows creating secure, managed, isolated, deployable and version-neutral plug-ins for Outlook Express and Windows Mail. It provides powerful solution templates, Outlook Express - specific components, visual designers and wizards for advanced customization of Outlook Express menus, toolbars, panes and regions.

Extensions: Outlook Express plug-ins
Versions: Outlook Express 6.x, Windows Mail 6.x
IDE: VS 2005, 2008; VB.NET, C#, C++/CLI

Overview Getting started

VDProj to WiX Converter
for Microsoft® Visual Studio®

This Visual Studio extension lets you convert any VDProj setup projects to WiX in a click.

All Visual Studio versions and all vdproj features are supported, including variables, msm and msi packages, custom actions, built-in dialogs, etc.

Overview Supported features

Security Manager
for Microsoft® Outlook

Add just a few lines of code to bypass the Outlook Object Model guard and avoid security warnings in add-ins and applications that automate Microsoft Outlook.

Supported application types
Stand-alone apps, Outlook add-ins

Overview Customers say Add-in Express blogs

The innovative technology for customizing Outlook views and forms. It is included in all Add-in Express for Office products and can be used to extend Outlook views, e-mail, task and appointment windows, To-Do bar, Reading and Navigation panes with your own custom sub-panes.

Extensions: application-level Outlook add-ins
Outlook versions: 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2010 (x86 and x64)
.NET Edition: VS 2005, 2008, 2010; VB.NET, C#, C++/CLI
.NET Framework: 2.0 and higher
VCL Edition: Delphi 5 - XE

Outlook regions in .NET Outlook regions in Delphi