How to: Prevent Outlook from Displaying a Form Region

There might be situations in which you do not want Microsoft Office Outlook to display a form region for a particular item. For example, if a contact item does not contain a business address, you can prevent a form region that shows the location of the business in a map from appearing.

Applies to: The information in this topic applies to application-level projects for Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010. For more information, see Features Available by Office Application and Project Type.

To prevent Outlook from displaying a form region

  1. Open the code file for the form region you want to modify.

  2. Expand the Form Region Factory code region.

  3. Add code to the FormRegionInitializing event handler that sets the Cancel property of the FormRegionInitializingEventArgs class to true.

In this example, if the contact item does not contain an address, the Cancel property is set to true, and the form region does not appear.

Example

Private Sub MapItFactory_FormRegionInitializing(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Microsoft.Office.Tools.Outlook.FormRegionInitializingEventArgs) Handles Me.FormRegionInitializing

    Dim myItem As Outlook.ContactItem = CType(e.OutlookItem, Outlook.ContactItem)

    If Not (myItem Is Nothing) Then 
        If Not (myItem.BusinessAddress Is Nothing) AndAlso myItem.BusinessAddress.Trim().Length > 0 Or (Not (myItem.HomeAddress Is Nothing) AndAlso myItem.HomeAddress.Trim().Length > 0) Or (Not (myItem.OtherAddress Is Nothing) AndAlso myItem.OtherAddress.Trim().Length > 0) Then 
            Return 
        End If 
    End If

    e.Cancel = True 

End Sub
private void MapItFactory_FormRegionInitializing(object sender,
    Microsoft.Office.Tools.Outlook.FormRegionInitializingEventArgs e)
{
    Outlook.ContactItem myItem = (Outlook.ContactItem)e.OutlookItem;

    if (myItem != null)
    {
        if ((myItem.BusinessAddress != null &&
                myItem.BusinessAddress.Trim().Length > 0) ||
            (myItem.HomeAddress != null && 
                myItem.HomeAddress.Trim().Length > 0) ||
            (myItem.OtherAddress != null && 
                myItem.OtherAddress.Trim().Length > 0))
        {
            return;
        }
    }

    e.Cancel = true;
}

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough: Designing an Outlook Form Region

How to: Add a Form Region to an Outlook Add-in Project

Walkthrough: Designing an Outlook Form Region

Walkthrough: Importing a Form Region That Is Designed in Outlook

Other Resources

Creating Outlook Form Regions