Microsoft® .NET Development for Microsoft Office

Chapter 4. Integrating Managed Code

The second and third chapters covered the basic mechanics and simple techniques for building solutions that combine managed code and Microsoft Office. We looked at all the possible low-level techniques for communicating with Office, and hopefully it is clear that the most important technique is automation using the primary interop assemblies (PIAs) or interop assemblies (IAs). IAs are crucial for enabling developers to build managed solutions that talk to Office applications in a predictable, strongly typed manner.

Now that we know how to talk to Office, the next question that arises is, To what extent can we integrate with Office? In later chapters, we’ll look at all the specific protocols for integrating managed ...