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Looking at the Word Object Model

  • Artikkeli

Microsoft Word is probably one of the most commonly used software packages. What many people don’t realize is that it exposes a very rich and fully featured object model. The object model is based around three basic objects. This is the top level Application object and the underlying Document and Selection objects. Each of these objects provides a unique set of features that are important to understand when starting to work with Microsoft Word. In this screencast available here we take a look at these objects and some of the ways they can be used.

 

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Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 03, 2006
    And yet why don't we see so many extentions , addins or macros written for Word? Why don't we see so many extentions written for Word as they are written eg. for Firefox, even as many as they are written for Emacs? There should be a reason.
    Is it because to do anything truely useful COM is required and COM is, how can I put it, not exactly easy? Is it because the object model is confusing? Is it because the documentation is like a reference than a tutorial and people are put off? Is it because object-orientation puts off the beginners? Is it because the Word interface is not as easily extented as the Firefox one with XUL? Or is it simply because Word offers everything and people do not require addins and macros?
    While you are planning for the next version of Word ie. Word 12, keep this in mind.
    (Note: I know that there are addins for Word but just compare the popularity and number of Word addins / macros and the ease of writing them compared to the visibility and number of eg. Firefox extentions and/or Emacs, etc.)
  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2006
    I second your argument. Firefox also uses its own version of COM called XPCOM, however it provides a very good Javascript interface to it. Firefox people looked at the shortcomings of COM and designed their COM model to be used with Javascript right from the start. I agree the documentation of COM API is very poorly done on MSDN. No samples and looks more academic to me!