Outlook Developer News

Transition at OutlookCode.com

A word from Sue Mosher: I am delighted to announce that, effective immediately, OutlookCode.com is under new management. My fellow Outlook MVP Eric Legault brings to the site a wealth of experience and enthusiasm not just for Outlook development but also for SharePoint. In the future, you can expect to see more content related to how these two platforms can work together.

Outlook has been at the center of my life for more than a decade, and I have greatly enjoyed helping people -- beginners to experts -- explore Outlook as a development platform. However, it is time for me to move on to do other things. You can follow my evolving interests by visiting my Turtleflock web site. Also, I will still be around here to respond to comments on my code samples and follow up on my existing discussion threads.

I wish you all the best of luck in your Outlook endeavors and hope you will give Eric the same support that I've enjoyed over the years.

Convert a business form to an Outlook custom form

Have you ever wanted to convert a business form to electronic transmission using Outlook? In a detailed step-by-step walkthrough, Jimmy shows you how, with plenty of screen shots for every procedure, including tricky techniques like tab order and validation. 

The walkthrough is for a message form, so it assumes that the organization has an Exchange server where the forms can be published, but the basic form design methods are applicable to any type of form.

Another round of sample VSTO add-ins for Outlook

Here are more sample add-ins using Visual Studio 2008 and Outlook 2007:

• Simple Outlook Add-in with VSTO 3.0 - Walkthrough with screen shots by Janne Mattila showing how a delegate can send a reply on behalf of another user automatically
• Out Loud for Outlook - applies speech recognition and speech synthesis to the task of communicating with Outlook
• Combining Information Rights Management with Watermarking via an Outlook 2007 add-in - Ronan Geraghty sends personalized messages with Outlook and IRM
• VSTO - Importing addresses from Database to Outlook - add-in from Naresh Bojja showing how to import from and synchronize with a database
• Error saving command bar position: Outlook 2007, VS 2008 add-in - shows how to save the user's preference for a custom command bar's position on an Explorer window
• Using Visual Studio 2008 / VSTO / Outlook to Pull Out RFC 822 Header Data - use a form region to display a message's Internet headers

Outlook and VS2008 on video

Microsoft has a new Office Developer Show series that offers tips on creating applications for Outlook and other Office programs. Some highlights:

• Episode 2 - how to create a class in an Outlook project to avoid the object model security prompts
• Episode 4 - a tip about saving and restoring the position of custom toolbars in Outlook 2007
• Episode 5 - an Outlook add-in that uses the Application.ItemSend event to help users remember to send an attachments

Using the Outlook object model with .NET

Matt Staehle, who works on Microsoft's Messaging Developer Support Team, has been running a series of articles on working with the Outlook object model in .NET languages. Read all the installments to pick up best practices and avoid common mistakes. Code examples are in C#:

• OOM.NET Part 1 - Introduction and Why Events Stop Firing
• Part 2 - Outlook Item Leaks
• Part 3 - Back to the Basics, MSDN Must Reads
• Part 4 - Don't Thread On Me
• Part 5 - Event Planning

From the Forums

Basic Outlook Techniques

Forward email but display form problem

Hi there, I'm trying to write a macro which will act like the "forward" button but not include the attachments. I tried using .forward but it won't create a new window. I tried cheating and using sendkeys "^f" to forward and then using Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem...

mark email as unread. when sending on behalf...

When you send on behalf of the email appears in your sent items not in the persons sent items that you are sending on behalf of. I have used the following code that assigns a catagory to all mails sent on behalf of Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal...

Outlook Form Design

finding a value in an excel row

Hi I'm working on an outlook form and need some help on how to search a column in an excel worksheet, find the value and add a value 3 columns to the right. I know I need to use the offset to get to the column but am having some trouble in how to...

Custom Journal Form and Tasks

Hello - I have a notion but need to know if it is even possible before I spend too much time trying to develop something. I work for an IT consulting firm that requires me to transcribe work done into the Outlook Journal. I have been developing a process...

Outlook Expert Techniques

Accessing someone else's shared folder via...

There have been several posts regarding this issue and the solution via GetsharedDefaultFolder method (e.g., http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa220116(office.11).aspx)...

Excel to Outlook Import to Shared Calendar...

Howdy! I've got a shared calendar in which I import employee review data so managers can be reminded when the reviews are due. I have successfully mapped all columns in my Excel 2007 named range to the Outlook 2007 fields; however, "Required Attendee"...

Outlook and .NET

Outlook meeting request

The script works a treat, but I need the script to generate a meeting request in Outlook, not just an appointment. Can anyone help me out. Sorry to post javascript query here. /* Define Outlook constant for Appointment Item */ var olAppointmentItem...

OutLook throws exception when I close the...

Hi, I am creating an AddIn to Outlook using C# 2.0 .I am creating a button in the Outlook window.It is working fine for me.But the problem is when I close the Outlook an exception is happening,from the Event viewer the description is follows. "Faulting...

Code Essentials

Export subject line to Access database

Hi I would like to know how to export the subject line, in a csv format ie. info1,info2,info3,info4, to a access database table? I have the code to intercept the outgoing mail, as Ejay56 have, put what do i put in after that? Regards Gelbert...

Sort alphabetically

I have a list of 30 names in a string separated by "\\\", and I need to sort the list alphabetically. What's the best way to do this? What type of sort works best for this? Thanks, May