Features Available by Application and Project Type

Visual Studio Tools for Office has several types of projects that support different business scenarios for Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system, including the following types:

• Document-level customizations.

• Application-level add-ins.

• SharePoint workflows.

Not all applications can use every project type. For example, document-level customization projects are available only for Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Excel. Similarly, some features are available only for certain types of projects or applications. For example, the actions pane is available only in document-level projects, and Ribbon extensions are available only for some applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system. For more information about the different project types, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Project Templates Overview.

Projects for Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system use different versions of the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime. For more information, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime Overview.

Note

Visual Studio Tools for Office projects are available only in some editions of Visual Studio. For more information, see Installing Visual Studio Tools for Office.

Project Types Available for Different Microsoft Office Applications

The following table shows which applications you can use with each project type.

Project types	2007 Microsoft Office system	Microsoft Office 2003
Document-level customizations	Word 2007 Excel 2007	Word 2003 Excel 2003
Application-level add-ins	Excel 2007 InfoPath 2007 Outlook 2007 PowerPoint 2007 Project 2007 Visio 2007 Word 2007	Excel 2003 Outlook 2003 PowerPoint 2003 Project 2003 Visio 2003 Word 2003
SharePoint workflows	SharePoint Server 2007	Not supported

Features Available in Different Project Types

The following table shows which project types provide each feature.

Feature	Projects types that provide the feature	Further reading
Actions pane.	All document-level projects.	Actions Pane Overview
ClickOnce deployment.	Application-level and document-level projects for the 2007 Microsoft Office system.	Deploying Office Solutions (2007 System)
Custom task panes.	Application-level projects for the following applications: Excel 2007 InfoPath 2007 Outlook 2007 PowerPoint 2007 Word 2007	Custom Task Panes Overview
Custom XML parts.	Document-level projects for the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Application level projects for the following applications: Excel 2007 PowerPoint 2007 Word 2007	Custom XML Parts Overview
Data cache.	All document-level projects.	Data in Document-Level Customizations
Expose an object in a document-level customization to VBA code in the document.	Document-level projects for the 2007 Microsoft Office system.	Calling Code in Document-Level Customizations from VBA
Expose an object in an application-level add-in to other Microsoft Office solutions.	All application-level projects.	Calling Code in Application-Level Add-ins from Other Solutions
The following host controls: Chart ListObject NamedRange Content Bookmark	All document-level projects. Application-level projects for Word 2007 and Excel 2007.	Host Items and Host Controls Overview
The following host controls: XMLMappedRange XMLNode XMLNodes	All document-level projects.	Host Items and Host Controls Overview
Outlook form regions.	Application-level projects for Outlook 2007.	Creating Outlook Form Regions
Ribbon customizations.	Document-level projects for the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Application-level projects for the following applications: Excel 2007 Outlook 2007 PowerPoint 2007 Word 2007	Ribbon Overview
Smart tags (using the Visual Studio Tools for Office programming model).	All document-level projects. Application-level projects for Word 2007 and Excel 2007.	Smart Tags Overview
Visual document designer.	All document-level projects.	Office Documents in the Visual Studio Environment Overview

See Also

Concepts

Office Solutions Development Overview

SharePoint Workflow Solutions

Actions Pane Overview

Ribbon Overview

Creating Outlook Form Regions

Host Items and Host Controls Overview

Smart Tags Overview

Data in Document-Level Customizations

Office Documents in the Visual Studio Environment Overview

Deploying Office Solutions (2007 System)

Other Resources

Getting Started (Visual Studio Tools for Office)

Change History

Date	History	Reason
July 2008	Added information about host item and host control support in application-level add-ins.	SP1 feature change.