I work in a remote region with limited resources and technical expertise as a Project Manager and a new project I just got handed was the testing of MS Word 2003 macros on a MS Word 2007 platform. The Macros were initially developed by Corel a few years ago when we migrated they migrated that specific division from WordPerfect to MS Office 2003.
I have a test workstation with Office 2007 installed and followed the steps required to get the Macros work to no avail. Any tips and recommendations would be appreciated. I do have experience in VBA and XML coding but the VBA was about 10 years ago and I haven't looked at XML code in at least 4 years.
If I can sollicit some high level suggestions, if coding needs to changed or updated, I can try to figure it out or contract it out but just want to make sure that I have exhausted all other options prior opting for that route.
Thanks
I doubt you will get any useful answers in this forum, which concerns itself with programming questions. But you might want to try this discussion group, which seems to be just what you want.
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I have created a working Powerpoint add-in (.ppam) that offers several time saving features, and added a custom UI ribbon tab to improve accessibility.
As I look to distribute this add-in to users, I'm looking to improve code security by compiling it into a COM add-in (.dll) via VS Express.
I have looked all over the web for documentation on this, and have found some promising source, such as:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/creatingcomaddin.aspx
Unfortunately, nearly everything I find appear to be quite outdated and based on Office XP or 2003, when I'm looking at Office 2010. I'm probably doing something wrong here, but I'm having trouble replicating their instructions on my end, running into errors like being unable to add a reference library or the code they suggest is not recognized. I actually am even unsure how to open for example the sample VB project that the Pearson site provides from the link above to imitate. I think all this may be because of the different versions of Office and Visual Studio, but could certainly be wrong.
Could anyone point me in the right direction? My understanding is that it's actually quite simple to convert the code from VBA to VB (just involves adding "Powerpoint.Application." in front of things like "activewindow"). So I just need to figure out how to convert a very simple VBA add-in into a COM add-in in VS Exp 2012 for Office 2010, and then can leverage the process to convert the full add-in.
Apologies if I'm using any of the terms incorrectly.
I work in an academic lab, and have been working on VSTO Add-In to Excel (primary to handle complex data analysis and generate reports, what I think is bread and butter for VSTO). At the lab we have Office 2010 almost exclusively (universities are like that). We are partnering with a drug company that is using Office 365.
They want to use the same Add-In I've been developing so we're all on the same page. I've let our Tech Transfer office know in case there are any licensing issues, as I don't think that's my problem to figure out.
On the tech side of things, I've been trying to figure out if the Add-In will work with 365. I built it in VS-2012 (academic version of professional) and it works well in Excel 2010 (though I keep adding to it).
I have read:
https://blogs.msdn.com/b/donovanf/archive/2011/06/29/office-365-developer-guidance-and-resources.aspx?Redirected=true
Which didn't make it sound hopeful, until I realized that if they get the premium edition it still includes a local install:
https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/office-online-microsoft-office-365-for-small-businesses-FX103037625.aspx
So my question is if someone is using the 365 Premium Edition with a local instal, then will a VSTO built for 2010 still work? I may be able to answer this in a few days when I actual meet them in person (and thus try it out), but I'd like to know the answer ahead of time if possible.
If not, would the best solution be to back track into VBA (that seems backwards) or try to work with SharePoint (for the first time in my life).
Thanks.
Well hopefully, someone can save some worry by knowing that infact it will work with Premium addition of 365. I was able to deploy the add-in without issue to their 365 local installs. I don't think it will work with the lower versions, but I haven't had a chance to test that yet.
I was trying to run a macro that was designed in for Microsoft Office 2003; however it will not work in Office 2010. Is there a wrapper or some sort of way that I can enable the Office 2010 to read the code?
Thanks for your help and please explain in layman's terms since I really don't have extensive programming knowledge.
You probably need to install the VBA Converter Pack. Follow the link at the top of the support page to download the hotfix.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926430/
Here is a question for my Father. He has been using VBA in Excel for more than two decades going from Excel 5 to this day where he is using Excel 2002.
As he has used VBA in Excel for so long, making extensive use of the ability to record macros, he has continued to invest in Excel as it has been rather stable (in terms of its VBA functionality) across each version. Now, he is considering upgrading to a newer version of Excel, however I have read reviews that Microsoft completely botched their VBA interpreter in Excel 2007, as scripts that used to work in Excel 2003 or earlier would become painfully slow or stop functioning altogether. Then looking into Excel 2010, I've read that a lot of the issues with Excel 2007 "haven't been fixed". As I am not sure as to the credibility of these reviews, which I have read I am posing this question For all those folks out that are currently making heavy use of VBA in Excel:
Would it be advisable for someone who has a great deal of time and work invested in VBA from Excel 2002 or earlier to upgrade to either Excel 2003, 2007 or 2010?
There were several performance issues with Excel 2007 VBA. Many of these were fixed in Excel 2007 SP1. There were also a number of macro recorder problems with Charts and Shapes.
My personal recommendation would be Excel 2010: the VBA performance and Macro recorder issues have been fixed and I find the overall stability of Excel 2010 to be superior to most recent versions (but YMMV).
Migrating from Excel 2002 to 2007 or 2010 will involve learning to use the ribbon: some people like it and some people hate it, but it certainly will require effort for a long-term Excel user. Note that the VBA IDE has not changed.
If your father survived the migration to Excel 97, the switch to 2007 or 2010 will feel like a cakewalk. Other than the new GUI, the changes are of the more-better variety. I haven't run into any compatibility issues including the big jump from 97 to 2003.
To get up to date, I'd recommend John Green et al's Excel 2007 VBA Programmer's reference.
Most of the VBA/Excel programs that I developed in Excel 2003 work just fine in 2007 and newer without modification (It seems like I remember most issues being chart related). Of course it's possible that at least some of his recorded macros or hand coded VBA will not work in Excel 2007 and newer. However with a little debugging the old code can likely be converted without too much headache (search the line that errors and you will likely find out how to rewrite the line).
There are free add-ins such as UBitMenu and others to bring back the old style menu menu.
I wrote a benchmark for Excel VBA earlier this year that contains 6 different performance tests. The results submitted by 373 people so far clearly show that excel 2007 is the slowest of all versions. Among Excel 2003, 2007, 2003, 2002, Excel 2010 performs best on most tests followed by Excel 2003. Between 2010 and 2003 the composite results are fairly close, but the individual benchmark tests show that Excel 2003 is much faster at displaying data on a chart while 2010 is faster with complex VBA based calculations. The complete results from the benchmark are located at http://exceltrader.net/et2/benchMark.php.
Amongst the swamp of documentation that is MSDN there is not an article to be found about the latest and greatest tools to be used in conjunction with Office 2007, specifically in the "VBA" department.
We've been using old school versions of Office for many years and had to use VBA. Upgrading to Office 2007 was a prospect for the PDF tools, however ye olde VBA seems to be the only choice of development within it.
Are there not newer .NET tools available? VB.NET, or C#.NET at least? If I have to declare and assign variables on separate lines using VBA one more time I think I may pluck my nose hairs out due to sheer frustration.
Thanks.
VSTO or Visual Studio Tools for Office