Office 2003 Programming: Real World Applications

Office 2003 has been enhanced to improve development and integration with Visual Basic business applications. And that's what this book is all about: providing a set of real-world, VB-oriented business applications that utilize, customize, and extend Microsoft Office applications! From presentation and document generators, to a budget consolidator and a timesheet system, this book is packed with applications to improve your productivity.

This book is not merely a reference for the Office development platform. Instead, it is about building useful applications with the Office platform and solving specific business problems. The code and sample applications remain the focus, though key transferable programming skills will be highlighted at each stage. Throughout the book, author Ty Anderson demonstrates a variety of approaches from cutting-edge to more traditional. This includes:

Each chapter presents a separate, fully-functioning application that is ready for use (or can be easily adapted to suit your own business requirements). So if you are a Visual Basic developer (6.0 or .NET) interested in building business applications with Office 2003, this book will provide exactly the skills you need.

update: The big news in Office 2003 is not the improvements to the individual tools (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) but the way in which the whole suite has been enhanced to improve development and integration with Visual Basic business applications. That is what this book is all about: it provides a set of independent real-world VB-oriented business applications that utilize, customize, and extend the Microsoft Office applications. From presentation and document generators to a budget consolidator and a timesheet system, this book is packed with applications that the vast majority of professional Office users can immediately use to improve their productivity.
 
This book is not a reference for the Office development platform. It is about building useful applications with the Office platform and solving specific business problems. The focus is on the code and the sample applications, although key transferable programming skills will be highlighted at each stage. Throughout the book, I demonstrate a variety of approaches, from the cutting-edge to the more traditional:
 
- Enabling cross-platform collaboration with XML, web services, and InfoPath
- Creating a streamlined process workflow with smart tags and the Information Bridge Framework
- Writing .NET code behind Excel applications using Visual Studio Tools for Office
- Automating common Office tasks with VBA and COM add-ins
 
Each chapter presents a separate, full functioning application that is ready for use, or can be easily adapted to suit your own business requirements.
 
If you are a Visual Basic developer (6.0 or .NET) interested in building business applications with Office 2003, it is my hope that this book will provide exactly the skills you need.

Ty Anderson runs a consultancy in Dallas and specializes in professional, actually used and working information management applications. Starting out as an accountant with Pricewaterhouse, Anderson eventually fell into development and systems development in the finance industry. He now designs, executes, and offers training on his own Office-centric applications delivered to small to medium-large firms. Anderson is a regular contributor to MSDN Office Library.