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Create Microsoft Office-based applications that work seamlessly in the Microsoft .NET environment—with this essential reference from Microsoft developer Andrew Whitechapel. The author provides expert advice on the various approaches you can use to build managed solutions with Office, and gives practical guidance on the most viable techniques for technical and business scenarios. You’ll begin building custom .NET-based applications with detailed, practical exercises that take you through solutions from beginning to end. Andrew shares tactics, strategies, and best practices—plus full sample code—to help you maximize your development efforts. Packed with the same information used by Microsoft’s Product Support Services team, this book is the one reference that every Office and .NET developer should have.

Discover how to:

• Develop powerful .NET solutions for Office with managed interop assemblies
• Integrate managed code with Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
• Create custom commands and functionality with managed COM and Automation add-ins
• Build custom Office features with external data using Web services, .NET remoting, and research services
• Use Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office to create document-centric solutions for Microsoft Excel and Word
• Use digital signatures, strong-naming and .NET Code Access Security
• Control Office applications using Platform Invoke, Reflection, drag-and-drop, and the IAccessible interface
• Develop managed Smart Tags and managed Smart Document solutions

Covers Microsoft Office 97, Office 2000, Office XP, and Microsoft Office System 2003 Editions

Pro SharePoint Solution Development: Combining .NET, SharePoint, and Office 2007 takes a practical problem/solution approach to common business challenges. You'll not only encounter interesting code samples, but also see how to combine these examples with the Microsoft collaboration platforms services. The books solutions focus on using Visual Studio Tools for Office to build the user interface layer. And solutions can interact with SharePoint as a service provider, taking advantage of SharePoints many collaboration features like document repositories, collaboration sites, and search functions.

This book is unique because it starts with challenges that end users deal with every day when using the Microsoft collaboration platform to support business processes. The solutions are presented as the hypothetical business challenges of a fictional company. By presenting the examples in this context, authors Ed Hild and Susie Adams make it easier to relate to the challenges and solution value. And the goal of these examples is to build applications that apply the benefits of the Office desktop interface with the richness of SharePoints collaboration features.

This book takes a practical problem-solution approach to common business challenges. You’ll not only encounter interesting code samples, but also see how to combine these examples with the Microsoft collaboration platform’s services. The book’s solutions focus on using Visual Studio 2008 and its built-in Office development tools to construct the user interface layer. And solutions can interact with SharePoint as a service provider, taking advantage of SharePoint’s many collaboration features like document repositories, collaboration sites, and search functions.

This book is unique because it starts with challenges that end users deal with every day when using the Microsoft collaboration platform to support business processes. The solutions are presented as hypothetical business challenges of a fictional company. By presenting the examples in this context, author Ed Hild makes it easier to relate to the challenges and solution value. The goal of these examples is to build applications that apply the benefits of the Office desktop interface to the richness of SharePoint collaboration features. This book will help you develop real-world solutions to complex business problems and challenges.

What you’ll learn

• Delve into an end-to-end walkthrough in each chapter of a practical business challenge.
• See code samples, user interface design, and platform integration all in the context of real-world problems.
• Discover custom code and implementation advice for popular Office and SharePoint features like custom web parts, Office add-ins, SharePoint features, workflow, the Business Data Catalog, Outlook form regions, the Office Open XML file format, and more.

Who this book is for

This book is of great value to intermediate and advanced developers working on enterprise applications based on the Microsoft Office or SharePoint systems, or working on integration projects with third-party vendors.

Table of Contents

1. Office Business Applications
2. SharePoint 2010: Overview and New Features
3. SharePoint Development with Visual Studio 2010
4. Microsoft Office Overview for Developers
5. Beyond the Spreadsheet
6. Merging SharePoint List Data into Word Documents
7. Automating Document Assembly
8. Extending PowerPoint to Build a Presentation 8: Based on Site Content
9. Building a Presentation Server-Side within a Web Part
10. Surfacing Line-of-Business Data in Outlook
11. Site Provisioning Workflows
12. Rapid SharePoint Application Development Using Access
13. Using Visio Services to Visualize Data
14. Building Mashups
15. Realizing the Vision

Get the fast facts that make learning Office 2010 plain and simple! This colorful, no-nonsense guide uses easy-to-follow steps and screenshots, and clear, concise language to show the simplest ways to get things done with Microsoft Word, Excel®, Outlook®, PowerPoint®, Access®, Publisher, and OneNote®.
Here's WHAT You'll Learn

• Create documents, Web pages, and other publications
• Organize your e-mail, calendar, contacts and tasks
• Build spreadsheets to analyze and visualize data
• Set up a simple database
• Capture notes with ink, voice or text

Here's HOW You'll Learn It

• Jump in wherever you need answers
• Easy-to-follow STEPS and SCREENSHOTS show exactly what to do
• Handy TIPS teach new techniques and shortcuts
• Quick TRY THIS! exercises help you apply what you learn right away

From Inside the Book:

"Microsoft Office InfoPath represents a revolutionary leap in XML technologies and a new paradigm for gathering business-critical information. I am delighted that Scott Roberts and Hagen Green, two distinguished members of the InfoPath product team, decided to share their experience in this book."

--From the Foreword by Jean Paoli, cocreator of XML 1.0 and Microsoft Office InfoPath

Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 offers breakthrough tools for gathering, managing, and integrating business-critical information, and creating efficient forms-driven processes. Two longtime members of Microsoft's InfoPath product team have written the first comprehensive, hands-on guide to building successful XML-based solutions with InfoPath 2007.

The book opens with a practical primer on the fundamentals of InfoPath form template design for information workers and application developers at all levels of experience. It then moves into advanced techniques for customizing, integrating, and extending form templates--with all the code examples and detail needed by professional developers.

Learn how to:

• Design form templates: create blank form templates, insert and customize controls, use advanced formatting, and construct and lay out views
• Work with data: start with XML data or schema, manually edit data sources, and understand design-time visuals
• Add custom business logic to forms, and integrate them with other applications
• Retrieve and query data from external data sources, including XML files, databases, SharePoint lists, Web services, and ADO.NET DataSets
• Submit and receive form data using ADO.NET
• Save, preview, and publish to e-mail, SharePoint, and more
• Build reusable components with template parts
• Create workflows with SharePoint and InfoPath E-Mail Forms
• Administer Forms Services and Web-enabled form templates
• Build advanced form templates using C# form code, custom controls, add-ins, and the new InfoPath 2007 managed object model
• Design form templates using Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)
• Update, secure, and optimize your form templates

List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
About the Authors
PART I: Designing Forms
Chapter 1: Introduction to InfoPath 2007
Chapter 2: Basics of InfoPath Form Design
Chapter 3: Working with Data
Chapter 4: Advanced Controls and Customization
Chapter 5: Adding Logic without Code
Chapter 6: Retrieving Data from External Sources
Chapter 7: Extended Features of Data Connections
Chapter 8: Submitting Form Data
Chapter 9: Saving and Publishing
Chapter 10: Building Reusable Components
Chapter 11: Security and Deployment
Chapter 12: Creating Reports
Chapter 13: Workflow
Chapter 14: Introduction to Forms Services
Part II: Advanced Form Design
Chapter 15: Writing Code in InfoPath
Chapter 16: Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
Chapter 17: Advanced Forms Services
Chapter 18: Hosting InfoPath
Chapter 19: Building Custom Controls Using ActiveX Technologies
Chapter 20: Add-ins
Chapter 21: Importers and Exporters
Appendix: Further Reading
Index

Office 2011 for Mac is easy to use, but to unleash its full power, you need to go beyond the basics. This entertaining guide not only gets you started with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the new Outlook for Mac, it also reveals useful lots of things you didn't know the software could do. Get crystal-clear explanations on the features you use most -- and plenty of power-user tips when you're ready for more.

• Take advantage of new tools. Navigate with the Ribbon, use SmartArt graphics, and work online with Office Web Apps.
• Create professional-looking documents. Use Word to craft beautiful reports, newsletters, brochures, and posters.
• Crunch numbers with ease. Assemble data, make calculations, and summarize the results with Excel.
• Stay organized. Set up Outlook to track your email, contacts, appointments, and tasks.
• Make eye-catching presentations. Build PowerPoint slideshows with video and audio clips, animations, and other features.
• Use the programs together. Discover how to be more productive and creative by drawing directly in Word documents, adding spreadsheets to your slides, and more.

6 Reasons to Move to Office 2011 for Mac

Gather a bunch of Mac fans around a water cooler and ask what they want most from Microsoft Office. Two requests soon bubble to the surface: make Office more Mac-like, and give it the same features as the Windows version. Office 2011 for Mac doesn’t completely fulfill both of these (albeit conflicting) desires, but it comes closer than ever. Office 2011 for Mac: The Missing Manual reveals features new and old to make you more productive than ever. Here’s a short list of reasons you may want to move up to the latest, greatest version of Office.

1. A More Mac-like Office

While it still looks like Microsoft, Office 2011 makes great use of the Mac OS X tools you know and love -- Spotlight search, Color Pickers, Mac OS X Help tools, and Finder file windows. You won’t have to relearn standard routines just to be compatible with Windows coworkers.

2. The Ribbon

The most visible change in Office 2011 for the Mac is the ribbon. Yes, the ribbon is similar to the toolbars that Office has had forever, but it’s easier to use because the layout is more consistent. Common commands are grouped logically under tabs. Need more room for your document? Just click the current tab, and the ribbon collapses until you need it again. If you prefer the old ways, Office 2011 for Mac: The Missing Manual explains how to hide the ribbon entirely and create custom toolbars.

3. Out with Entourage, In with Outlook

Entourage, which has been part of Office since 2001, was a fabulous email, calendar, and information management program, but it was never designed to work with the corporate powerhouse Outlook. In Office 2011, Mac fans finally get to join the Outlook nation and coordinate meetings, mailing lists, and tasks with their Windows counterparts. In Office 2011 for Mac: The Missing Manual, you’ll learn how to customize Outlook to match your work style.

4. The Return of Visual Basic

Many Mac fans were disappointed when Visual Basic disappeared in Office 2008. Microsoft got the message, and brought back Visual Basic in all its glory. You can once again use Microsoft’s scripting language to automate and customize Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

5. Broadcast Your PowerPoint Presentation

Want to show your presentation to an audience that’s scattered around the globe? Rather than having everyone burn jet fuel to meet at a Holiday Inn, you can broadcast your presentation over the Internet. Upload your slides to a Microsoft’s free server, and then invite your audience via instant messages or email. You control the presentation, so your audience only sees slides as you click to show them. For sound, you can synchronize the presentation with a conference call.

6. Excel Sparklines

Excel 2011 now includes sparklines -- “small, intense, simple datawords,” as described by statistician Edward Tufte. While full-blown charts are great for comparing the values of different elements, sparklines are better for tracking the changes in a single element. Sparklines fit in a single cell yet express data relationships. For example, a sparkline might tell a doctor how a patient’s glucose level or respiration changes each day. For a meteorologist, a sparkline might express daily changes in temperature or barometric pressure.

Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) was released in August of 2003. It brought the power of .NET to developing Word and Excel applications. While powerful, it was also lacking in some key features, and difficult to use. VSTO 2005 will be released as part of the Whidbey release. It will be incorporated in the more advanced versions of Visual Studio .NET 2005, and will also be available as a stand-alone product. It has corrected many of the major problems with the first version, and is poised to experience a rapid growth in usage. Coverage has been expanded to include Outlook and InfoPath in addition to Word and Excel. This book is not only written by key members of the team that developed VSTO 2005, but it will also be the first book available on VSTO. The authors provide both an introduction to VSTO as well as a tutorial for using it, including lots of practical examples, and a refreshing honesty about both the strengths and pitfalls of the technology. This book will be a must-have for all the developers considering VSTO.

Complete coverage of all key .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 languages and technologies

.NET 4 is Microsoft's latest version of their core programming platform, and Visual Studio 2010 is the toolset that helps write .NET 4 applications. This comprehensive resource offers one-stop shopping for all you need to know to get productive with .NET 4. Experienced author and .NET guru Mitchel Sellers reviews all the important new features of .NET 4, including .NET charting and ASP.NET charting, ASP.NET dynamic data and jQuery, and the addition of F# as a supported package language.

The expansive coverage is divided into six distinctive parts for easy navigation, and addresses: Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4, ASP.NET, the C# language, the VB.NET language, and the new F# language. A practical approach and complete examples round out this much-needed reference.

• Focuses on the new and important features of the latest version Microsoft's core programming platform-.NET 4-as well as Visual Studio 2010, which allows you to write .NET 4 applications
• Provides comprehensive coverage divided into six parts: Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4, ASP.NET, the C# language, the VB.NET language, and the new F# language
• Discusses Visual Studio snippets and templates, .NET charting components, the .NET framework and WPF, LINQ, and the Entity framework
• Explores various aspects of Visual Basic 2010, such as multi-line lambdas, auto-implemented properties, nullable optional parameters, and more

This investigative look at .NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 will help you identify and isolate key elements that can benefit you immediately.

This book is a no-nonsense guide for Office users who have a SharePoint environment deployed. Written by person responsible for large SharePoint deployment – his role is helping desktop users integrate and use SP features seamlessly – our author takes users through working through their familiar Office applications and leveraging SharePoint on the backend. This is different than using SharePoint; it’s about putting Office to work and integrating it with SharePoint in such a way that even more benefits and synergies are realized. It’s about using Office and SharePoint as a platform, and there is no book offering on the market combining the two products.

What is this book about?

The addition of Crystal Reports 9.0 to Visual Studio .NET 2003 offers developers a reporting tool that allows you to turn almost any data into interactive, dynamic content through portals, wireless devices, and Microsoft Office documents. This code-intensive guide takes you step by step through developing reports and incorporating them into applications.

First, you gain a thorough understanding of how this version of Crystal Reports differs from previous versions and how it fits into the .NET platform. Then you begin creating reports and learn how to integrate them into both Windows and Web-based applications. You explore XML Web services, find out how to work with ADO.NET, and learn to use formulas and logic in your reports. Finally, you develop distributed reporting applications and discover how to deploy the applications you have created.

Packed with real-world examples of working applications, this comprehensive second edition provides a complete understanding of commonly used features, examples of integration with a variety of databases and platforms, and much more.

What does this book cover?

Here are some details on what you'll discover in this book:

• Advanced report design
• Methods for creating reports using the Expert
• How to integrate reports into Windows and Web-based applications
• Development and deployment of distributed reporting applications
• How to create XML Report Web Services and work with ADO.NET
• Tips for using parameters with Crystal Reports and customizing the report content at run-time
• Options for working with different data sources
• How to use the features contained in the properties, methods, and events associated with the Crystal Reports engine

Who is this book for?

This book is for programmers seeking a comprehensive guide to the functionality of Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET. You should have some experience with .NET and Visual Studio .NET. Some familiarity with Crystal Reports is helpful, although this update includes a large section on report design.