Create event handlers in Office projects

There are several ways to create event handlers in Visual Basic and C#. In design view, you can create the default event handlers for controls by double-clicking the control, or use the events pane of the Properties window to create handlers for any event on the control. However, if you are in Code view, you may not want to switch to Design view to create an event handler.

Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and VSTO Add-in projects. See Features available by Office application and project type.

Note

Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Personalize the IDE.

To create an event handler in Visual Basic

  1. From the Class Name drop-down list at the top of the Code Editor, select the object that you want to create an event handler for.

    Note

    If you want to create event handlers for ThisDocument or ThisWorkbook, you must select (ThisDocument Events) or (ThisWorkbook Events) in the Class Name drop-down list

  2. From the Method Name drop-down list at the top of the Code Editor, select the event.

    Visual Studio creates the event handler and moves the insertion point to the newly created event handler. If the event handler already exists, the insertion point moves to the existing event handler.

To create an event handler in C#

  1. Create the event delegate in the Startup event of the class by typing the qualified event name followed by a space, and then typing += with no space afterwards. For example:

    this.<object name>.<event name> +=

  2. At the end of the line of code, press the TAB key twice.

    Visual Studio automatically completes the line of code, creates the event handler, and moves the insertion point to the newly created event handler.