Posts Tagged ‘.NET’

How to implement auto-update for Office add-ins

Automatic updates for software applications' mobile apps have become an everyday occurrence for most users. For a user it provides a level of comfort to know that their software is always up to date with the latest and greatest version. It could also be a source of irritation for many users depending on the frequency of updates – not many users would be happy upgrading to a new version every day... Read the rest of this entry →

Working with Outlook attachments programmatically: C# code examples

Many Outlook developers have been faced with programmatically accessing and working with Outlook Item attachments. All Outlook items have the Attachments property, which means attachments can be added to MailItem, ContactItem and AppointmentItem items, to name a few. In this article we'll explore some facets of handling and interacting with attachments in Outlook... Read the rest of this entry →

Sending and updating Outlook Calendar’s appointments and meeting requests

2015 is here, and from all of us at Add-in Express we wish you a very prosperous year. We'll kick off this year by taking a closer look at Microsoft Outlook appointments and meetings... Read the rest of this entry →

How to access Outlook from HTML and JavaScript based add-ins

When Microsoft announced their new Office development platform, which would allow developers to create MS Office Apps using HTML and JavaScript, I was very excited about the idea. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that I simply could not accomplish the same things I can with the standard Office Object Model than with the new Office JavaScript object model... Read the rest of this entry →

Exception from HRESULT 0x800A01A8 in PowerPoint solutions

On an example of a simple scenario, this article demonstrates what causes 0x800A01A8 and how to avoid it in C#, VB.NET, VBA, Delphi. Exception from HRESULT: 0x800A01A8 is also known as OLE error 800A01A8 and also known as Object Required.... Read the rest of this entry →

Creating Microsoft InfoPath add-ins in Visual Studio with Add-in Express

Earlier this year, Microsoft has also announced that it will discontinue InfoPath to pursue a more integrated experience for Office forms. So look out for some InfoPath features being integrated into Word, Access and SharePoint in the future! ... Read the rest of this entry →

PowerPoint UI Customization: custom ribbons, toolbars, menus

In my last article, I discussed the PowerPoint object model. Today, I want to discuss the various ways we can customize the PowerPoint user interface... Read the rest of this entry →

Project 2013 UI customization

When it comes to developing add-ins for Microsoft Project you cannot be blamed for feeling that MS Project is a bit of a second-rate citizen in the MS Office suite of products. Its object model does not feel quite as polished as the Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel object models... Read the rest of this entry →

How to create and modify Outlook-specific files

Microsoft Outlook produces and uses a variety of file types. The most common and well known fields are either .pst or .ost files. These two file types are known as Outlook Data Files, the .pst file is known as the Personal Outlook Data file and stores you messages and other Outlook items... Read the rest of this entry →

Create a status report generator using Excel and Outlook: C# sample

Today, I'll show you how to create a status report using Excel and Outlook. This add-in sample will run within Excel. The user will have a button to click that starts the report process. Instead of creating a new workbook or worksheet, the add-in will insert the task status report into the existing spreadsheet... Read the rest of this entry →

How to find the last used cell (row or column) in Excel

VB.NET code samples explain some reliable methods for finding the last used cell in an Excel worksheet or a range.... Read the rest of this entry →

Populating Excel workbooks and ranges with arrays

Microsoft Excel, with its almost endless supply of rows and columns, is data DisneyLand. It's fun to work with data and make it easy to consume. Part of the fun, at least for developers, is populating Excel with data. Today, I want to take another look at how to use arrays to populate Excel with data... Read the rest of this entry →

How to use Excel VBA macros and COM add-ins in one solution

The Microsoft Excel Office Object model is a varied and very mature framework and allows you to not only create VBA macros and functions but also COM add-ins. Of course creating these add-ins is made even simpler with the help of Add-in Express... Read the rest of this entry →

Please, don’t let us make your favorite IDE unsupported!

Currently we are working on new major releases and minor updates of our frameworks and tools. Just yesterday, an intense debate sparked among our team over whether we should continue to support some aged IDEs, e.g. Visual Studio 2005 and Delphi 5... Read the rest of this entry →

Convert an Excel column number to a column name or letter: C# and VB.NET examples

There are a lot of examples floating around on the internet on how to convert Excel column numbers to alphabetical characters. There are a few ways to get the column letter, using either vanilla C# or VB.NET, Excel formulas or the Excel object model. Let's take a look at some of the solutions... Read the rest of this entry →

How to properly release Excel COM objects

You'll see a lot of complaints on the internet about Excel and other Microsoft Office applications not quitting properly after using the object model to perform certain actions, or showing sporadic and unpredictable behavior in COM add-ins. In the end most of these issues boil down to developers not properly disposing of COM objects... Read the rest of this entry →

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