sharepointoffice365office-jsword-addinsword-web-addins

Can you automatically trigger installation of Word Web Add-in?


I'm developing a Word Web Add-in with Office.js. This will work in conjunction with a existing VSTO add-in.

The VSTO installation process is as follows: A user clicks a link on a Web page. This opens an application on their machine which checks for the presence of the VSTO add-in. If it is not found, then the application prompts the user to install it.

There is a requirement to integrate the installation of the Office.js add-in with the existing deployment process if possible, so that the user does not need to install it separately.

The options for publishing and deploying Office Add-ins are listed here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/publish/publish

The add-in is an internal Word add-in. Therefore the applicable options for a production deployment are

The preferred option would be via integrated apps because it will be distributed to Mac users as well as Windows. However, since VSTO add-ins only work on Windows, it is possible we could support two distribution channels - the MS 365 one to facilitate Mac users and the SharePoint one to facilitate the integrated deployment.

Is this possible?


Solution

  • You should be able to do this with Open XML. You'll need to embed the add-in when building the document and set the taskpane to automatically open. The documentation for this procedure can be found in the article Automatically open a task pane with a document

    There's also a full sample showing this for Excel workbooks. The principles should be the same.