Office Documentation Home

Welcome to the Microsoft Office Developer Documentation

This portal provides comprehensive resources for developers looking to extend and integrate with Microsoft Office applications. Leverage the power of Office APIs to build robust solutions, automate tasks, and create engaging user experiences.

Whether you're building Office Add-ins, automating workflows with Office Scripts, or diving deep into the Office object model, you'll find the documentation, code samples, and guidance you need right here.

Getting Started

Begin your journey by understanding the fundamental concepts and setting up your development environment. This section guides you through the initial steps to start building your Office solutions.

Setting up your Development Environment: Learn about the tools and prerequisites for Office development.
Your First Office Add-in: A step-by-step tutorial to create a basic add-in.
Understanding Office Scripts: An introduction to automating tasks in Excel on the web.

Core Concepts

Grasp the essential building blocks of Office development.

Data Model

Understand how data is structured and accessed within Office applications. This includes concepts like ranges, tables, documents, and mail items.

For example, in Excel, you interact with a hierarchical structure of Workbooks, Worksheets, Ranges, and Cells. Workbook -> Worksheet -> Range -> Cell

Automation

Discover the various ways to automate tasks within Office. This includes using Office Add-ins, Office Scripts, and VSTO.

Office Scripts: Lightweight JavaScript automation for Excel on the web.

function main() {
    console.log("Hello from Office Scripts!");
    let range = Excel.workbook.getSelectedRange();
    range.format.fill.color = "yellow";
}

Office Add-ins: Cross-platform solutions using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

API Reference

Explore the detailed documentation for the various Office APIs.

Excel API

Access and manipulate data, formatting, charts, and more in Excel.

Method	Description	Example
`range.getValue()`	Retrieves the value of a cell or range.	`let value = cell.getValue();`
`range.setValue(value)`	Sets the value of a cell or range.	`cell.setValue("New Value");`
`workbook.addWorksheet(name)`	Adds a new worksheet to the workbook.	`workbook.addWorksheet("MySheet");`

Word API

Work with documents, paragraphs, tables, and content controls in Word.

Document.getBody()
Paragraph.insertText(text)

Outlook API

Interact with emails, appointments, contacts, and other Outlook items.

Mailbox.getCallbackToken()
Item.body.setAsync(content)

UX Guidelines

Best practices for designing user interfaces and experiences for Office Add-ins.

Ensure consistent branding with Microsoft Office.
Provide clear feedback to user actions.
Minimize context switching for users.
Use standard Office UI patterns where appropriate.

Consider using the Office UI Fabric components for a native look and feel.

Code Samples

Browse a collection of ready-to-use code samples demonstrating various Office development scenarios.

Troubleshooting and Support

Find answers to common issues and get help from the community.