Visual Studio Tools for Office Project Templates Overview
Visual Studio Tools for Office provides project templates for creating the following types of Microsoft Office solutions:
Document-level customizations
Application-level add-ins
SharePoint workflows
InfoPath forms
The Visual Studio Tools for Office project templates are available in the New Project dialog box, under the Office node. The Office node contains two subnodes, 2003 and 2007, which contain the project templates available for Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. You can also find Excel 2007 workbook, Word 2007 document, and Outlook 2007 add-in project templates in the Visual C# and Visual Basic language nodes. The Visual Studio Tools for Office project templates are available only for Visual Basic and Visual C#.
Each project provides code to get you started on a specific kind of solution. In the code, a startup event and a shutdown event are raised, and methods are included in the generated project code to handle these events. For more information, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Project Events.
Note
Visual Studio Tools for Office is an optional component of Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Visual Studio Team System. Visual Studio Tools for Office is installed by default with these versions of Visual Studio.
Document-Level Project Templates
The Office, 2003, and 2007 nodes provide project templates to get you started creating document-level customizations for Word and Excel. Double-click any of the document-level projects to start the Visual Studio Tools for Office Project Wizard, which gives you the choice of creating a new document or using an existing document for your solution.
For more information, see How to: Create Visual Studio Tools for Office Projects. For information about getting started with these project types, see Getting Started Programming Document-Level Customizations for Excel and Getting Started Programming Document-Level Customizations for Word.
Word Document
The Word 2007 Document and Word 2003 Document project templates provide code to get you started automating and capturing events from Word. Word makes it easy to present data in graphically rich reports and provides an attractive front end for collecting information. For more information, see Word Document Project Template.
Word Template
The Word 2007 Template and Word 2003 Template project templates behave identically to the Word 2007 Document and Word 2003 Document project templates. However, these templates make it easy for users to create new local document copies of the Word template. The managed code extensions are available from the new document. For more information, see Word Template Project Template.
Note
Word templates that reference managed code extensions cannot be used as global add-ins. The assembly is not called if the template is loaded from the Startup directory of Word. For more information, see Limitations of Global Templates and Excel Add-ins (.xla Files).
Excel Workbook
The Excel 2007 Workbook and Excel 2003 Workbook project templates provide code to get you started automating and capturing events from Excel, so you can take advantage of its data analysis and charting tools in your solutions. For more information, see Excel Workbook Project Template.
Excel Template
The Excel 2007 Template and Excel 2003 Template project templates behave identically to the Excel Workbook project templates. However, the template makes it easy for users to create new local workbook copies of the Excel template. The managed code extensions are available from the new workbook. For more information, see Excel Template Project Template.
Application-Level Project Templates
The Office, 2003, and 2007 nodes provide project templates to get you started creating add-ins for applications in Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. For more information about creating an add-in project, see How to: Create Visual Studio Tools for Office Projects. For information about getting started with add-in projects, see Getting Started Programming Application-Level Add-Ins.
2007
The Office and 2007 nodes provide project templates for the following applications:
Excel 2007
InfoPath 2007
Outlook 2007
PowerPoint 2007
Project 2007
Visio 2007
Word 2007
For more information, see 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in Project Templates.
2003
The Office and 2003 nodes provide application-level project templates for the following applications:
Excel 2003
Outlook 2003
PowerPoint 2003
Project 2003
Visio 2003
Word 2003
For more information, see 2003 Microsoft Office Add-in Project Templates.
All application-level add-in project templates for Microsoft Office 2003 also include a Setup project that you can use to deploy your Microsoft Office 2003 add-in. For more information about the Setup project, see Setup Projects for Application-Level Add-ins (2003 System).
SharePoint Workflow Project Templates
The Workflow, Office, and 2007 nodes contain two project templates to get you started creating custom workflow templates for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
SharePoint 2007 Sequential Workflow. This project template represents a workflow that consists of a procession of steps that are executed in order until the last activity is completed.
SharePoint 2007 State Machine Workflow. This project template represents a workflow that consists of a set of states, transitions, and actions.
For more information about these project templates, see SharePoint Workflow Project Templates. For more information about creating a SharePoint workflow template project, see How to: Create a SharePoint Workflow Project.
InfoPath Form Templates
The Office and 2007 nodes contain the InfoPath Form Template project template. Use this project to create an InfoPath form template for Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007.
For more information, see Developing InfoPath Managed Code Form Templates.
See Also
Tasks
How to: Create Visual Studio Tools for Office Projects
How to: Create a SharePoint Workflow Project
Concepts
Creating Office Solutions in Visual Studio
Getting Started Programming Document-Level Customizations for Excel
Getting Started Programming Document-Level Customizations for Word
Getting Started Programming Application-Level Add-Ins