VSTO stands for Visual Studio Tools for Office. It is a free
add-on for Visual Studio 2005. The latest version of VSTO 2005 SE (build
8.0.50727.940) can be downloaded from the website of Microsoft. By default, VSTO 3.0 gets installed
with all versions of Visual Studio 2008, except Express and Standard editions.
Prior to VSTO, unmanaged Component Object Model (COM) Office
applications add-ins were created using VBA or managed Component Object Model
(COM) Office applications add-in were created using shared add-ins wizard of
Visual Studio.
VSTO provides the flexibility to the developer for
developing Microsoft Office 2003/2007 based custom application with some of the
great new stunning features which were lacking in VBA/Shared add-in. Some of
the features and benefits of using VSTO are:
1.
Design time support
2.
Document level customization for Word and Excel
3.
Application level customization for Outlook
4.
Ease of application deployment and maintenance
5.
Enhanced security feature of VSTO helps and protects User from viruses
and malicious code
6.
Full support of features provided by the Microsoft .NET Framework
because of Managed code
