Add-in Express components for developing
Office extensions in VB.NET, C#, C++

Add-in Express™
for Microsoft® Office and .net

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Add-in Express components

Add-in Express provides many components. They are described on the following pages:

  • Add-in Express modules – every Add-in Express based project is built around a module of the corresponding type.
  • Ribbon UI components - you use these components to customize the Ribbon UI. Remember, the Ribbon was introduced in several Office 2007 applications, including the Outlook Inspector window of Outlook 2007.
  • Commandbar UI components - conventional toolbars live in Office 2000 - 2003 and some Office 2007 applications (including the Explorer window of Outlook 2007); you use these components together with the Ribbon components above to create an add-in supporting all Office versions.
  • Custom task panes in Office 2007 - 2021 - Office 2007 let us add custom panes to Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint; later on, they added Project 2010 to the list of applications supporting custom task panes.
  • Advanced regions and task panes for Office 2000 - 2021 - Add-in Express provides the technology allowing creating custom regions for any version of Outlook and panes for any version of Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
  • Events - these are application-level events of all Office applications, events of Outlook items and collections, as well as keyboard shortcuts.
  • Outlook UI components - Outlook shortcut links and Outlook property pages (shown, say, in properties of a folder.
  • Custom toolbar controls - using .NET controls on command bars (not available for the Ribbon UI).

Add-in Express modules

An Add-in Express based project is built around the module that represents the Office extension you are creating. The module implements the interfaces required for your add-in to be loaded by the corresponding Office application. Also, it contains the code executed when the add-in is being registered and unregistered. In addition, the module provides a design surface, you use it to store the components required by the add-in's functionality.

Specific types of Add-in Express modules are described in these articles:

Developing Excel XLL add-ins <<

>> Office Ribbon components