Benefits of using Add-in Express SDK over MS Office VSTO SDK

Amit Gupta

3 minutes read

Benefits of using Add-in Express SDK over MS Office VSTO SDK

Add-in Express is a custom SDK developed on top of Microsoft COM ADD-IN SDK which competes with VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) SDK from Microsoft. We have found many advantages of using Add-in Express over VSTO SDK and hence we recommend our customers to also consider using Add-in Express SDK. In this blog, I will share from our experience those advantages of using Add-in Express to develop your next custom add-in for the office.

Support for Visual Studio : It works with all editions of Visual Studio, including Express, and all versions of Microsoft Office from 2000 to Office 2019.
Out of the box components : Add-in Express provides you with a range of visual designers, components, Visual Studio item and project templates and deployment tools
Makes Deployment Easy: Add-in Express makes deploying your applications a one-click operation and removes the headache of manually creating deployment scenarios and working with the Windows registry.
One Project for All Applications Versions: Add-in Express SDK gives you wrapper functions which are version neutral, allowing the same project to target all versions of the same office application from 2000 to 2019.
One Project for All Office Applications : Add-in Express SDK also has support to keep a single project which would generate custom add-ins targeting multiple applications in the Microsoft Office suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other apps.)
Tools for Rapid Development: Add-in Express would quickly setup a boilerplate project which would give you access to each host application object and a large number of events.
Visual Designer: Design your UI components without the need to write XML configuration files. This is way easier and faster compared to what you do in VSTO SDK.

We at our office use Add-In Express when developing COM Add-in for Office Applications. As an Office Add-in Development Company, we understand the full capability offered by various SDK Options, hence we make the right recommendation on what is the best suited for your Add-in Development project. You can contact us and get a free quote for your next Custom Office Add-in Project.