Welcome to the Excel 2007 XLL Software Development Kit

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Welcome to the Microsoft Office Excel 2007 XLL Software Development Kit (SDK) documentation. This reference contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and sample files to guide you in developing Microsoft Office Excel 2007 XLLs.

Publish date of this reference: September 2007 (version 2007)

This documentation is accessible from the following locations:

From the Microsoft Download Center.   To download the latest version of the Excel 2007 XLL Software Development Kit for offline viewing, visit the Microsoft Download Center.

From the MSDN Library.   To view the most recent version online, click items in the table of contents control, displayed in the navigation pane of your browser.

The Excel 2007 XLL Software Development Kit includes the following:

  • C application programming interface (API): Includes header and source files that enable DLLs to access Excel 2007 functionality, and a description of the interface that a DLL should expose to work with the Excel Add-in Manager.

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 projects: Includes C/C++ source code and demonstrates correct use of the C API. These sample projects provide examples of what you can do, and they serve as a starting point for your own add-in development.

The SDK documentation contains the following sections:

Functionality Not Covered

The following subjects are not covered here:

  • Developing user-defined functions and commands in Excel macro (XLM) sheets.

  • Creating user-defined functions in DLLs that are designed to be used to control the flow of execution of an XLM macro.

    Such functions work by returning a special flow control data type, which is also not described in this documentation.

Excel Developer Portal

Excel 2007 Resource Center

Microsoft Office Developer Center

Accessibility in the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Document Conventions in Office Developer Documentation

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 XLL SDK Copyright Information