Architecture of Office solutions in Visual Studio
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
The topics in this section provide information about how solutions created by using the Office developer tools in Visual Studio work.
Note
Interested in developing solutions that extend the Office experience across multiple platforms? Check out the new Office Add-ins model. Office Add-ins have a small footprint compared to VSTO Add-ins and solutions, and you can build them by using almost any web programming technology, such as HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, and XML.
In this section
Architecture of document-level customizations
Describes how document-level customizations work, and how they are perceived differently by the developer and the end user.
Describes the components of VSTO Add-ins, and how they are loaded by applications.
Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime overview
Describes the different versions of the runtime that is used for Office solutions.
Registry entries for VSTO Add-ins
Describes the registry keys that are required on end-user computers to discover and load VSTO Add-ins.
Custom document properties overview
Explains how the custom document properties work in document-level customizations.
Related sections
Office solutions development overview (VSTO)
Provides an introduction to using Microsoft Office as a platform for developing business solutions.
Get started (Office development in Visual Studio)
Provides links to information about configuring a development computer to create Office solutions, how to begin creating solutions, and what has changed since the earlier versions of the Office developer tools in Visual Studio.
Design and create Office solutions
Provides links to information about creating Office solutions.
General reference (Office development in Visual Studio)
Provides links to information about user interface elements in Office projects, application and deployment manifests for Office projects, and APIs in the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime.