Office 2007 Developer Resources

  • Article

I told a major Microsoft customer/partner this week that I would get together a list of Office developer resources for them. I haven't looked around to compile such a list for a few months, and a lot has changed! There's so much good info out there, especially since Beta 2, that I decided to post it here for anyone who is interested in a single list of Office developer resources.

Office Developer Center. This is the motherlode of Office developer info. It contains links to a large and growing number of white papers, code samples, videos, forums, blogs and other types of content, all centered around Office development. Erika Ehrli is doing a great job of documenting the power of the Office platform here, and they have everything from the Office Devcon Videos to the OBA Developer Portal and much more.

In The Office: Screencasts. These are the screencasts that my colleague Don Campbell has organized for the In The Office section of Channel 9. These are a great resource if you want to know how to accomplish a specific task in the 2007 Microsoft Office System such as creating a web part, configuring Excel Services, customizing the ribbon, and so on. Trainer Ted Pattison helped us get these together, and he has a great ability to make complicated tasks sound simple, straightforward, and even fun.

MSDN Virtual Labs. These labs on the Office Developer Center are brand-new, and there are currently four labs available on these topics:

  • Creating Workflows for Windows SharePoint Services
  • Introducing Content Types for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
  • Understanding the 2007 Microsoft Office System User Experience and Interface Design
  • Programmatic Manipulation of the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats

Note that you can subscribe to an RSS feed to get information about upcoming Virtual Labs in this series as soon as they're published.

Open XML File Formats. There's a web site devoted to nothing but Open XML development topics at www.OpenXmlDeveloper.org, where Open XML developers share tips and techniques. If you have a question about Open XML development, that's the place to ask. You can also find plenty of good information on Brian Jones's blog, Kevin Boske's blog, and my blog, as well as the Office Developer Center mentioned above.

Blogs. There are so many blogs covering Office development now that it's hard to pick just a few. Here are some of the blogs I've found most useful and interesting, in alphabetical order:

Classroom Training and Consulting. I mentioned Ted Pattison above, the trainer who helped us put together the In The Office screencasts. I worked with Ted and Patrick Tisseghem of U2U on the Office developer workshops we put on worldwide earlier this year, and these guys are great speakers who are specializing in Office 2007 development topics. Ted is US-based and Patrick is located in Belgium; here are links to their web sites, where you can learn about upcoming workshops or contact them for more specialized needs:

As the Office developer community grows in the months and years ahead, this list will never be complete, but I'll continue to update and re-post it periodically. So let me know if you think I've left off a good resource, and I'll make sure to include it next time around.