How To Use Visual Basic & DDE/OLE with Other Windows-Based Apps

MORE INFORMATION

Visual Basic has built-in support for DDE. Visual Basic can link and share information with any other Windows-based application that also supports DDE.

Additional articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base discuss exactly how to establish a DDE link between Visual Basic and the following applications:

• Another Visual Basic application
• Microsoft Word for Windows
• Microsoft Excel for Windows
• Q+E (shipped with Microsoft Excel)

To locate these articles, query on the following words in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:


A Visual Basic application can also use OLE to link with any other Windows application that supports OLE.

OLE controls are not built into Visual Basic itself, but are readily available through the Microsoft Professional or Enterprise Editions of Visual Basic for Windows, available from Microsoft End User Sales and Service or your nearest Microsoft dealer.

A more challenging approach to obtain OLE support is to write your own custom control. With the Visual Basic Control Development Kit (CDK), along with either the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) and Microsoft Visual C++, you can create a custom control that supports OLE and add it to your Visual Basic application.

Below is a list of applications for Microsoft Windows and their abilities to support DDE and/or OLE:

   Product                 Version    Supports DDE?   OLE Version
   -------                 -------    -------------   -----------
   Microsoft Access        2.0        Yes             2.0
   Microsoft Publisher     2.0        No              1.0
   Microsoft Visual Basic  3.0        Yes             2.0*
   Microsoft Excel         4.0        Yes             1.0
   Microsoft Excel         5.0        Yes             2.0
   Microsoft PowerPoint    4.0        No              2.0
   Microsoft Project       4.0        No              2.0
   Microsoft Word          2.0        Yes             1.0
   Microsoft Word          6.0        Yes             2.0
   Microsoft Works         3.0        No              2.0

* OLE Automation support is built into the language, but OLE linking and
  embedding is only supported through the use of a custom control.