Re: What's VSTO? Is it similar to Office Automation or VBA?

VSTO means Visual Studio 2xxxx Tool For MS Office xxxxx, where "xxxxx"
varies with different version/edition. Also, depending on its
version/edition, it could be different things and very confusing if you did
not do you study work before make decision to get one.

VSTO 2003: it is add-in to Visual Studio 2003, meaning it cannot exist by
itself. You need Visual Studio2003.

VSTO2005: it is a complete suite of development tool, almost the same as
Visual Studio2005 Professional. The two suites (VS2005 Pro and VSTO2005)
have some features mutually excluded, i.e. some features only in one suite,
not in other. If you develop something that need such excluded features, you
need to get more expensive suite Visual Studio Team suite (whether you are
in a developing team or not).

VSTO2005 SE (Second Edition): It is add-in again. You need Visual Studio
2005 Pro or VSTO2005 in order to add VSTO2005SE on its top.

When using VSTO to develop MS Office application, you must have STAND-ALONE
MS Word2003/Excel2003/Outlook2003, or MS Office2003 Professional. All other
flavour of MS Office applications will not work.

VSTO2005 SE is for upcomming MS Office2007 (Have no idea if it is still
limited to MS Office 2007 Pro version or not. I do not event know what kinds
of MS Office 2007 suite will be available).

If you are to get VSTO for your development, you would not pick VSTO2003
(perhaps MS stops selling it already). If you cannot afford VS Team suite,
you need to pick one between VS2005Pro or VSTO2005 first, depending on your
development needs:

VS Pro is not for MS Office Application, except for MS Office application
automation (the same old COM technology as VB6/VBA), but with VSTO2005 SE
add-in, you can do MS Office developemt at APPLICATION LEVEL.

VSTO2005, OTH, can do most generic developing plus MS Office specific
development. If you are casual developer and interested in develop/customize
generic office software, it might be the best for you.

Go to MS web site and carefully compare each suite and find the one best fit
your need.


"pedestrian via DotNetMonster.com" <u16758@uwe> wrote in message
news:6979453f5407a@xxxxxx
I'm fresh to the word VSTO and never learn it.
I used to code using Office Automation (or VBA)
such as the following code in V.Studio.
Is VSTO offer the capabilities to do the same thing?
or is it something else? What's are its main uses?
Thanks.

Dim app As Excel.Application
Dim wb As Excel.Workbook
Dim ws As Excel.Work***

app = New Excel.Application
wb = app.Workbooks.Add
ws = wb.Worksheets(1)
ws.Cells(1, 1) = "content to insert in cell 1,1"

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