Office XP Development with VBA [Paperback]

Peter G. Aitken (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2001

Building on Office XP's foundation, you can construct powerful custom applications far more quickly than if you built them from scratch. In this book, expert developer and consultant Peter G. Aitken shows exactly how to leverage the power of Microsoft Office XP in custom application development. Whether you're an experienced developer or a business professional with a problem that needs solving, Aitken will show you how to do it with Office-step by step. Aitken begins by reviewing each key Office XP application-Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, FrontPage, and Outlook-and the shared components accessible to all of them. You'll discover powerful opportunities for extending and automating Office, and for using Office XP to improve collaboration throughout your organization. Then, one step at a time, Aitken teaches the key VBA skills you'll need to achieve your goals. Office XP Development with VBA then walks you through the construction of four real-world Office applications, emphasizing Office XP's value in real-world collaboration on the Web and corporate intranets. For both experienced developers and Office power users-no Office or VBA experience necessary!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

• Create custom business solutions with Microsoft Office XP and Office 2000!
• Extend Word, Excel, Outlook, and other Office applications.
• Learn all aspects of Office development, including security and distribution.
• Leverage Office's powerful collaboration, intranet, and Web capabilities
• For novice developers and Office power users!
• Discover the power of Office programming
• Applies to both Office XP and Office 2000
• Master the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language and development environment
• Understand the powerful components in the Office object model
• Build custom tools that leverage email and the Web
• Construct four Office applications - step-by-step
• No Microsoft Office programming experience necessary!

Developing robust custom solutions with Microsoft Office XP/2000!Microsoft Office is far more than the world's leading office productivity suite. Itspowerful capabilities are organized into hundreds of programmable components, all available to any developer who needs to create custom business solutions. Bycombining these components with the powerful Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming language, you can construct powerful applications far more quickly than if you built them from scratch. These components and VBA are available in both Office XP and Office 2000, which means you can use them whether or not you upgraded.

In this book, expert developer and consultant Peter G. Aitken shows exactly how toleverage the power of Microsoft Office in custom application development. Whetheryou're an experienced developer or a business professional with a problem that needssolving, Aitken will show you how to do it with Office — step by step.

Aitken begins by reviewing each key Office application - Word, Excel, Access,PowerPoint, Frontpage, and Outlook - and the shared components accessible to all ofthem. You'll discover powerful opportunities for extending and automating Office to increase efficiency and improve collaboration throughout your organization. Then, onestep at a time, Aitken teaches the key VBA skills you'll need to achieve your goals. Finally, this book walks you through the construction of four real-world Office applications, emphasizing the potential value of Office custom solutions in real-world business situations.

About the Author

PETER G. AITKEN is a well-known author specializing in computer programming,applications, and hardware. His 30+ books include Windows Script Host (Prentice Hall PTR), Teach Yourself C in 21 Days, and Visual Basic 6 Programming Blue Book. A long-time faculty member at Duke University, he is the proprietor of PGA Consulting, providing custom software development and technical writing for industry and academia.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1st edition (September 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130654175
• ISBN-13: 978-0130654175
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Applications > Office XP

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There's gotta be better books out there for VBA beginners..., May 23, 2003

By 

Greg Laskody (Coral Gables, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Office XP Development with VBA (Paperback)

I was very disappointed in this publication. As a neophyte to VBA, I was looking for a presentation that is easy to understand, with many "hands-on" programming examples. This book does neither. The author says that the book is for beginners, but I found myself quickly lost; this book is clearly geared toward those having an intermediate level of VBA prowess, or at least some familiarity with VBA. Also, in one of the very few step-by-step programming examples Mr. Aitken does include (a program sending an e-mail to every contact listed in an Outlook address book), there were typographical errors in his code that set off my debugger!

If your looking for a VBA book that has easy-to-follow examples, save your money and buy something else. This one's a "dog with fleas" for a rookie like me.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful overview, makes a good reference, March 24, 2004

By 

Gary Heayes "Gazzah" (Saitama-ken Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Office XP Development with VBA (Paperback)

I'm a VBA programmer working in Office 2002/XP, and this book and Steve Roman's "Writing Word Macros" are my main references. The book (Aitken's "Office XP Development") has a useful 12 page chapter on Powerpoint VBA, (very handy, since there are NO books on Powerpoint VBA development available, and very little info on the web), and also has an introduction to the Windows API (which saved my life).

Since the book covers all six Office apps, and then some, it naturally can't provide the level of detail of a single application book, but I think it's a useful addition to a VBA programmers bookshelf.

It's very readable, and explains some tricky concepts well. On the whole, I think it's a great alternative to buying six separate books to cover the Office suite.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed!, June 9, 2003

By 

A.Reader1 (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Office XP Development with VBA (Paperback)

I bought this book (along with the Microsoft Office Xp Developer's Guide by MS Press) hoping to learn about Office Xp development. What a disappointment! Fully one-third of this book (chapters 12-21) covers very elementary VBA syntax like datatypes, loops, writing procedures, error handling etc. Lord knows there are more than enough books with those topics. This VBA material should have been put on a CD or a website to download for free.

I was looking for a book that assumes VBA knowledge and uses that as a starting point to thoroughly cover Office Xp development. My area of interest, Word development, occupies just 1 chapter consisting of 30 pages. To be a little fair, some of preliminary chapters were useful for setting the scene. Looks like I'm going to have to piece things together from the MSDN website along with web searches and the MS support/KB articles - AGAIN.

Other books that sound like they could be good for Word development: 1. Word 2000 Developer's Handbook by Guy Hart-Davis; 2. Learn Word 2000 VBA Document Automation by Scott Driza; 3. Writing Word Macros by Steven Roman. update to this review: I've used book 3 and it is quite good.