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I have been looking online for sometime now, and getting all the more confused...

  1. How are VSTO, COM objects and Office.Interops related?
  2. Are all Interop objects COM?
  3. How would I serialize a class using VSTO?
John Saunders
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aromore
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1 Answers1

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A similar question answered. In a few words:

  • How are VSTO, COM objects and Office.Interops related? Microsoft Office has been developed mostly as unmanaged code which exposes its Object Model as a set of COM objects (classes) and interfaces. Office.Interops (or Office PIA) provides Runtime-Callable Wrappers for those interfaces, so they can be called from managed .NET code. VSTO is a set of managed libraries which make use of the Office PIA to facilitate Office add-in, smart tag and document customization development.

  • Are all Interop objects COM? Not exactly, they're more like proxies from .NET into COM.

  • How would I serialize a class using VSTO? If I understood this question correctly, this is done via document customization. A VSTO extension can save its state in the Office document as custom properties or custom tags (a related question).

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noseratio
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  • very good answer! if it resolves what i am looking for, i'll mark it as my answer... – aromore Aug 16 '13 at 14:20
  • No problem. A while ago, this book gave me everything I needed to know on the subject: [Visual Studio Tools for Office 2007: VSTO for Excel, Word, and Outlook](http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Studio-Tools-Office-2007/dp/0321533216/). – noseratio Aug 16 '13 at 14:31