VSTO for Mere Mortals: A VBA Developer's Guide to Microsoft Office Development Using Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

Authors: Kathleen McGrath, Paul Stubbs
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN-10: 0321426711
ISBN-13: 978-0321426710
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $55.99 CDN
Publication Date: December 2006
Softcover: 689 pages
Online information: Table of Contents, Sample chapter, Source code
URL: http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321426711&rl=1

Traditionally, developing on the Office platform meant that you would use VBA but Microsoft released Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) a few years ago to let .NET developers use their skills to develop managed Office applications. Moving from VBA to .NET is not easy because you need to learn so much new stuff especially if you never touched .NET in any way. “VSTO for Mere Mortals” is a book targeted at VBA developers who never used .NET before.

In the first chapters, the authors explain what is VSTO and what features are available for developers. Chapter 2 and 3 introduce the Visual Studio development environment and managed code. Seasoned .NET developers will skip these chapters but they are essential for people who never used Visual Studio before. The next chapters cover everything VSTO from Word, Excel and Outlook development to Smart Tags and database development. A full chapter is devoted to new features of VSTO 2005 SE and Office 2007.

If you’re a VBA developer that wants to jump into .NET development using VSTO, look no further, this is the book for you. Experienced .NET will also find this book interesting but will skip a couple of .NET introduction chapters.