The WordMeister

As became apparent in the previous post introducing Web Add-ins, a Web Add-in consists of more than a single file containing the code. Distributing and installing a Web Add-in is more complex than handing someone an Office document containing the code and explaining how to change the settings in the Trust Center so that it […]

Those of us who’ve been developing with the Office applications for Windows since they were introduced in the early 1990’s are no strangers to programming language changes. The transition in version 97 from the UI-oriented WordBasic / Excel XLM / AccessBasic languages to the more object-oriented VBA meant not only learning a new language, but […]

A poster in the Word for Developers forum has brought a new problem with the Documents collection to light this week. Unlike the one discussed in an earlier blog post, this behavior applies to all current versions of Word, including 2013. Back when the Internet was comparatively new, Word didn’t know how to handle URLs […]

When you create a new document in Word, it automatically bases on a template. By default, this will be the built-in Normal.dotm, but it can be any *.dotx or *.dotm file. This document will maintain a link back to the template, enabling it to use Building Blocks, Ribbon customization and macros in the template. Users and […]

One of the biggest problems with Word has always been command discovery balanced against working efficiently. For the ten plus years spanning Word 6 through Word 2003 there were menus, toolbars for various features, as well as the possibility of creating customized toolbars with the commands you needed most. In addition, the toolbars could be positioned freely […]

Once again, a forum question has prompted a topic for my blog. This time, it comes from the discussions about developing for Office 2013. For many years, a main focus of my work with Word has been related to importing and exporting data into and out of Word documents. The built-in functionality for this has […]

There was an interesting question in the forums the other day that piqued my interest. How to create a chart in a WordOpenXML document that will function in Word 2000-2003 (using the converter in the Compatibiltiy Pack), in Word 2007 and in Word 2010. We actually figure it out in less than 24 hours! (That […]