Re: Word object library

Hi Matthias,

I'm developing a word add-in which I want to distribute. The add-in
needs a reference to the Microsoft Word Object Library.
As I have installed Office 2007 beta for testing, the Microsoft Word
12.0 Object Library is included with the setup project. But I want the
add-in to run on every Word version, from word 97 (8.0) till Word 2007
(12.0).

It seems that the dll-versions are not downward-compatibe?

How can I achive that the add-in runs on any word version? Do I need
to include all Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.dll versions? And if so,
how does Windows/Word know which one to use? Do I have to set anything
up?

Word 97 doesn't have the interface to support COM Add-ins, so you can
scratch that off your list...

Managed code interfaces with Office COM components using "Interop
Assemblies" (IAs). For Word 2002 and later, Microsoft has provided
Primary IAs (PIAs) that are optimized to work with that version of Word.

For earlier versions, you can use TlbImp.exe to generate your own set of
IAs and distribute it with your solution.

Because each version adds functionality, if you program against a later
version it will contain and reference things not available in the older
version. The Office teams try very hard to ensure backwards
compatibility, so something developed against an earlier version can -
if you're lucky! - be used with newer versions.

IOW, you can try programming your SHARED Add-in (not VSTO, that's only
supported back to Word 2003) against Office 2000, generating and
distributing the IAs with it.

Note, please, that Microsoft does not support this scenario. They
recommend a separate solution for each version you support.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question
or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

.

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