User FAQs

If you have a question, please send it to us.

1) Can you describe Ribbon Customisation ?
Allows you to add (or replace) functionality to existing tabs, create new tabs, groups and commands.
This can be done in two ways:
*) Using the Custom UI Editor to embed XML markup into the actual file (with the open xml format).
*) Using Visual Studio using to create a VSTO add-in or a COM add-in

2) Are the Office PIAs (Primary Interop Assemblies) included with an Office 365 installation ?
No. These PIA files are included as part of Visual Studio but they are not included with Office 365, Office 2019 or Office 2016.
You should make sure the PIAs have the Embed Interop Type option set to True.

3) Is the VSTO Runtime included with an Office 365 installation ?
No. For Office 2013 and Office 2010 a 32-bit version of the runtime was installed automatically if .NET Framework 3.5 was already installed.
You should make sure the 2010 VSTO Runtime (v4) - 64 and 32 bit version is included as a prerequisite for your solution.

4) What is the Office namespace used for ?
This namespace and assembly contains the core objects that are shared across all the different Office applications.

Office = Microsoft.Office.Core 

This is one the Primary Interop Assemblies and is automatically added when you create a new VSTO add-in.
This is the Office 2016 version of this file.
This assembly was compiled against .NET runtime 2.0.50727.
This can be added from the Extension tab.

Folder - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Shared\Visual Studio Tools for Office\PIA\Office15\Office.dll 

5) What is the Microsoft.Office.Core namespace used for ?
This is the Office 365 version of the same file and is not a Primary Interop Assembly.
This is the latest file and should really be the one that you should be using.
This can be added from the COM tab.

Folder - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX86\Microsoft Shared\Office16\MSO.dll 

6) Have any good books been written on Visual Studio Tools for Office ?
Yes. Here is a list of books we would recommend:

2009 Feb - Visual Studio Tools for Office 2007: VSTO for Excel, Word and Outlook (Office 2007, Visual Studio 2008) 
2006 Dec - VSTO for Mere Mortals: A VBA Developers Guide (Office 2003, Visual Studio 2005) 
2006 Apr - Visual Studio Tools for Office Using Visual Basic 2005 with Excel, Word, Outlook (Office 2003, Visual Studio 2005) 
2005 Sep - Visual Studio Tools for Office Using C# with Excel, Word, Outlook (Office 2003, Visual Studio 2005)