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Active Documents

Microsoft® Active Documents are also known as Document Objects or Doc Objects. Unlike an OLE embedded object that is displayed within the page of another document, an Active Document is a full-scale document that is embedded in a container. Microsoft Office Binder and Microsoft Internet Explorer are two examples of Active Document containers. Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are two examples of Active Document servers. Unlike embedded objects, Active Documents have complete control over their pages and can exploit the complete native functionality of the server (application) that creates them. Users can create documents using the full power of their favorite applications, if they are Active Document-enabled, yet treat the resulting project as a single entity.

If you have Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer installed, you can see an example of Active Document technology at work. Open Internet Explorer and open a Word document in Internet Explorer. You will see that the document is displayed just as it is in Word, except it is contained inside Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer provides the basic menus, toolbars, and status bars, and Word adds all of its menus, toolbars, and status bars to create a user interface that is very familiar to the user.

The following sections describe the major steps involved in creating an Active Document server or an Active Document container in C++ without using the Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC). You should, at a minimum, be familiar with C++, OLE, and in-place activation.

All of the Active Document-specific definitions are contained in Docobj.h. No special libraries are required to build an Active Document server or container.

arrowg.gifProgramming an Active Document Server

arrowg.gifProgramming an Active Document Container

arrowg.gifReference


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