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I don't know much about VSTO or VSTA, but I think you need the full version of Visual Studio to use either one. I can't convince my boss to buy us this, but I would like to develop Excel addins in IronPython. I've looked at several tutorials that show you how interact with Excel using IronPython, but I can't find much about developing addins. Can you recommend any resources?

Is my only option making a COM addin? If so, does anybody know of any example of this using IronPython?

I'm sorry to say I can't go with any options that include spending money. I've got the free Visual Studio Shell and IronPython tools for visual studio setup for free right now.

oob
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3 Answers3

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First, you are right, unfortunately VSTO is not supported in Visual Studio Express, the free version of VS.
Then, you may want to look into ExcelDNA. I haven't tried it specifically with IronPython, but it should work. ExcelDNA is a free library which allows you to build xll Excel add-ins and use .NET, up to version 4.

Mathias
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  • Thanks for pointing this out. I'm just getting started, but I was able to get a working example up and running. We'll have to wait and see about performance. http://groups.google.com/group/exceldna/browse_thread/thread/2202f58934689d77 – oob Mar 13 '11 at 20:00
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Another codeplex project might be of help: xll.codeplex.com. It really depends on how easy it is for you to call IronPython from C++.

Keith A. Lewis
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Is a "plain old" VBA add-in out of the question? It's going to be smaller, quicker to implement, easier to deploy.

Jon Peltier
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  • You make a good point. I don't dislike VBA that much and I've used it for a couple of years now, but this is mostly for fun, so I'm not so worried about time to implement. Size may not matter much either. I've started on an ExcelDNA AddIn, so I think once I get the process down, it will be just as easy to deploy. Once I get setup, I think it might be just as easy to implement. I'm mainly looking to do things that aren't that easy in VBA. Like I often want to use Python itertools when I write VBA and I have to write libraries myself or go searching for them. – oob Mar 13 '11 at 19:58