Common tasks in Office programming

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

This topic is designed to help you find the answers to the following categories of common questions about programming Office solutions by using Visual Studio.

• Setup and general tasks.

• User interface customization tasks.

• Excel automation tasks.

• Word automation tasks.

• Data tasks.

• Server-side document management tasks.

• Security tasks.

• Deployment tasks.

Setup and general tasks

• How to: Create Office projects in Visual Studio.

• How to: Upgrade Office solutions.

• How to: Install Office primary interop assemblies.

• How to: Target Office applications through primary interop assemblies.

• How to: Create event handlers in Office projects.

• How to: Open Office solutions without running code.

• How to: Set up configuration information for an Office solution.

• How to: Show the developer tab on the Ribbon.

• How to: Show Add-in user interface errors.

User interface customization tasks

Controls on documents and worksheets

• How to: Add Windows Forms controls to Office documents.

• How to: Add NamedRange controls to worksheets.

• How to: Add ListObject controls to worksheets.

• How to: Add Windows Forms controls to Office documents.

• How to: Add Content controls to Word documents.

• How to: Add Bookmark controls to Word documents.

Task panes in document-level customizations

• How to: Add an actions pane to Word documents or Excel workbooks.

Task panes in VSTO Add-ins

• How to: Add a custom task pane to an application.

Ribbon customizations

• How to: Get started customizing the Ribbon.

• How to: Change the position of a tab on the Ribbon.

• How to: Customize a built-in tab.

• How to: Add controls to the Backstage view.

• How to: Export a Ribbon from the Ribbon Designer to Ribbon XML.

Outlook form regions

• How to: Add a form region to an Outlook Add-in project.

• How to: Prevent Outlook from displaying a form region.

Custom menus

• How to: Add commands to shortcut menus.

Excel automation tasks

• How to: Programmatically display a string in a worksheet cell.

• How to: Programmatically create new workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically open workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically save workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically close workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically add new worksheets to workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically hide worksheets.

• How to: Programmatically move worksheets within workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically protect workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically refer to worksheet ranges in code.

• How to: Programmatically apply styles to ranges in workbooks.

• How to: Programmatically change formatting in worksheet rows containing selected cells.

• How to: Programmatically search for text in worksheet ranges.

• How to: Programmatically print worksheets.

• How to: Programmatically run Excel calculations.

• How to: Programmatically sort data in worksheets.

Word automation tasks

• How to: Programmatically create new documents.

• How to: Programmatically open existing documents.

• How to: Programmatically save documents.

• How to: Programmatically close documents.

• How to: Programmatically insert text into Word documents.

• How to: Programmatically define and select ranges in documents.

• How to: Programmatically reset ranges in Word documents.

• How to: Programmatically format text in documents.

• How to: Add XMLNode controls to Word documents.

• How to: Programmatically update bookmark text.

• How to: Programmatically search for and replace text in documents.

• How to: Programmatically print documents.

• How to: Programmatically create Word tables.

• How to: Programmatically add rows and columns to Word tables.

• How to: Programmatically count characters in documents.

Data tasks

Data-bound controls

• How to: Populate worksheets with data from a database.

• How to: Populate documents with data from a database.

• How to: Populate documents with data from services.

• How to: Populate documents with data from objects.

• How to: Populate documents with data from a database.

• How to: Populate documents with data from services.

• How to: Update a data source with data from a host control.

Cached data in document-level solutions

• How to: Cache data for use offline or on a server.

• How to: Programmatically cache a data source in an Office document.

• How to: Cache data in a password-protected document.

Custom XML data

• How to: Add custom XML parts to document-level customizations.

• How to: Add custom XML parts to documents by using VSTO Add-ins.

Server-side document management tasks

• How to: Remove managed code extensions from documents.

• How to: Attach managed code extensions to documents.

Security tasks

• How to: Sign Office solutions.

Deployment tasks

• How to: Publish an Office solution by using ClickOnce.

• How to: Publish a document-level Office solution to a SharePoint server by using ClickOnce.

• How to: Install a ClickOnce Office solution.

• How to: Install prerequisites on end user computers to run Office solutions.

• How to: Prepare IIS for deployment of Office solutions.

• How to: Update deployed Office solutions.

• How to: Change the installation path of an Office solution.

See also

• Get started (Office development in Visual Studio)
• Features available by Office application and project type
• Office development samples and walkthroughs