COM add-in programming for Outlook, Excel, Word, other Microsoft Office apps.

Develop Office add-in /plug-in, smart tag in Visual Studio .NET, VSTO and Delphi

Add-in Express

Add-in Express is a powerful programming toolkit for Visual Studio .NET, VSTO and Delphi that will help you create application-level COM add-ins, smart tags and RTD servers for Microsoft Office 2007 - 2000 applications.  All the add-ins / plug-ins for Outlook, Excel and Word that you can see on this site are built on Add-in Express.

With Add-in Express you can develop:

• COM add-in / plug-in for Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, Visio, FrontPage, Project, MapPoint and Publisher, including:
  • Creating new or customizing existing toolbars / command bars, menus and sub-menus for Microsoft Office 2000 - 2003, their controls and items.
  • Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon UI tabs, Quick Access Toolbar and Office Menu.
  • Create custom task panes for Office 2007 applications: Excel, Outlook, word, etc.
  • Extending Outlook windows, views and forms with Advanced Form Regions.
    Modifying Outlook Bar, To-Do bar, Navigation pane and Reading pane with custom forms.
  • Handling all events of all Microsoft Office applications.
  • Developing application-level keyboard shortcuts. 
  • Adding Microsoft Outlook option and property pages.
  • Using any .NET controls on Microsoft Office toolbars.
• Smart tags for Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, including dynamical recognizers.
• Excel RTD Servers, including passing parameters to any RTD functions.
• Excel User-Defined functions (UDFs) through Excel Automation add-ins and XLLs.

Add-in Express is currently available in 4 editions:

Add-in Express .NET       Add-in Express VSTO       Add-in Express VCL       Add-in Express for IE

You write functional code only

Add-in Express builds its project over special RAD modules, visual designers and components that allow you to create add-ins, smart tags and RTD servers without coding their GUI. Add-in Express creates code skeletons, and you concentrate on the functionality of your add-ins. In other words, Add-in Express does all service work itself, you write functional code only and get a version-independent COM add-in that works in all Microsoft Office versions from Office 2000 to 2007.

Have a look at our flash videos and see for yourself: 

• Developing Outlook 2007 add-in in .NET
• Developing Outlook plugin in Delphi
• Adding a custom button to Outlook toolbar in VSTO

Supported IDEs and applications

Add-in Express technology allows you to program Office add-in / plug-in, smart tag and Excel RTD server in Visual Studio .NET 2003, 2005 and Visual Studio 2007 (VB.NET, C#, C++, RemObjects Chrome), VSTO 2005 (SE) and 2008, Borland Delphi 5, 6, 7, 2005, Delphi 2006 and 2007.

Add-in Express supports Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, Project, MapPoint, Publisher, FrontPage, Access and InfoPath. All Microsoft Office service packs and updates are supported. 

Support of Office 2007 and Windows Vista

Add-in Express 2007 completely supports Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Vista. Now using Add-in Express 2007 you can develop feature-rich, version-neutral, secure, isolated, deployable and updatable COM add-ins, smart tags, Excel RTD servers and Excel User-Defined functions for Office 2007 in the same way as you developed extensions for Office 2000, 2002 and 2003 with Add-in Express 2.x.

What's new in Add-in Express 2008:

• Add-in Express 2008 provides an improved version of the extensibility kernel to extend the Advanced Outlook Regions and to introduce Advanced Excel Task Panes (Excel 2000-2007).
• Add-in Express.NET also provides full support for Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework 3.5 and WPF controls, ClickOnce prerequisites and the Excel Worksheet API (XLL).
• Finally, Add-in Express .net 2008 enables you to include in your Office add-ins solutions the modules of the two new products - Add-in Express for Outlook Express and Add-in Express for Internet Explorer. So, in the framework of one project, you can get one or several Office add-ins, one Outlook Express plug-in and one Internet Explorer add-on with a common code base.

Add-in Express benefits:

• Version-independent plugins: you write the code on your add-in once and have it work in all Office versions from Office 2000 to 2007.
• Complete support of the Office 2007 Ribbon UI and Vista. With Add-in Express you can create your own Ribbon tabs, customize the Quick Access Toolbar and the Office Menu.
• Shims generated automatically: shim projects are generated automatically when you create new solutions, and they are refreshed whenever your solution is changed. Forget about shims, it is done automatically.
• All add-ins are shared: with Add-in Express you don't need to develop different add-ins for different applications. Each add-in /plugin based on Add-in Express is shared, and you can add or remove any applications from the supported application list at any time.
• Deployment: all solutions based on Add-in Express include setup projects generated automatically. The setup projects take upon themselves all troubles of the add-in, smart tag and RTD server deployment and integrate all necessary dependencies.
• Multi-add-in projects: you can develop several Office add-ins /plugins in one add-in project, in one assembly.
• Office PIAs: Add-in Express directly integrates its projects with the Office primary interop assemblies which makes your coding more comfortable and your applied code smarter and more readable.
• Advanced Outlook features: For advanced customization of Outlook GUI, Add-in Express has developed its own unique technology of Advanced Outlook Form regions. It also offers special features for customizing Outlook bar, To-Do bar, Navigation and Reading panes. Besides that, the support of the multi-explorer and multi-inspector modes, trusted add-ins, option pages for the main Outlook Options dialog and property pages for the Folder Properties dialog, several Outlook-specific event-helpers and more.
• Advanced Excel features: Creating application-level task panes that work on all Excel versions, from Excel 2000 to Excel 2007, building custom worksheet functions (user-defined functions, UDFs) using Excel Automation add-ins and XLL addins.

Save hours of coding!

Add-in Express will free you of the burden of mastering the arcane twists of Outlook, Excel, Word, etc. objects and enable you to quickly create complex plug-ins for MS Office. You will not need to worry about any low level development or management of the add-in. Add-in Express will undertake this work and save you weeks of coding.

More about:    

Add-in Express .NET       Add-in Express VSTO       Add-in Express VCL       Add-in Express for Internet Explorer

Add-in Express customers say:

Add-in Express is the greatest tool for Office COM programming. First and foremost, superb code, and numerous examples to get you started quickly. But, beyond that, the quality of the technical support provided by Add-in Express alone is worth a pot of gold in itself! We were able to develop a project in no time, and always got great response any time we needed it. Way to go!

Jean-Guy Ducreux, President, Dewqs' Tribes
www.dewqs.com

More about:    

Add-in Express .NET       Add-in Express VSTO       Add-in Express VCL       Add-in Express for IE