HOWTO: Manipulate Office Assistants from Visual Basic

• Microsoft Visual Basic Control Creation, Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0
• Microsoft Visual Basic Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

Microsoft Office 97 introduces the Office Assistant, a cartoon-like character designed to answer questions and help you perform routine tasks with Microsoft Office applications. Office Assistants have an object model available in the "Microsoft Office 8.0 Object Library" (Mso97.dll) and it appears that the Assistant objects may be manipulated similar to any other OLE object. However, attempting to manipulate the Assistants from Visual Basic may cause the following error:

   Run-time error '-2147467259 (80004005)':
   Operation cannot be performed when the application is inactive

The Office Assistant object model is read-only when used outside of Microsoft Office applications. Properties of the Office Assistant may be read; for example, the following line of code returns true or false:

   Msgbox Assistant.Visible

   Assistant.Visible = True

To programmatically manipulate the Microsoft Office Assistants from within Visual Basic, you must create a reference to an active Office application object, such as "Access.Application", from which you can manipulate the Assistant.

MORE INFORMATION

The step-by-step example below illustrates how to manipulate the Microsoft Office Assistant using Microsoft Office application objects. When the following code executes, an Office application object is instantiated and the Office application will be running and visible on the Task Bar. The user is prompted approximately every two seconds to view some Office Assistant animation. If the user responds "Yes" to the message box, a random Office Assistant animation is selected and executed.

NOTE: The Office Assistant component is optional when setting up Microsoft Office applications. If the Office Assistants are not installed, a run-time error will occur with the following message:

   Method 'assistant' of object '_application' failed

Step-By-Step Example

In the sample code below, the objOffice variable is used to get a reference to an Office application object. Remember that a reference to an Office application object is necessary; the method below is the way to do this in Visual Basic. If you would like to substitute another Office application for Microsoft Access, modify the OfficeAppObject constant to be Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft PowerPoint.

1. Start a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add references to the "Microsoft Office 8.0 Object Library" and the "Microsoft Access 8.0 Object Library". In Visual Basic 5.0 click References on the Project menu; in Visual Basic 4.0 click References on the Tools menu. "Microsoft Word 8.0 Object Library," "Microsoft Excel 8.0 Object Library," and "Microsoft PowerPoint 8.0 Object Library" could also be selected.

3. Add a Timer control (Timer1) to Form1.

4. Set Timer1's Interval property to 2000.

5. Insert the following code into the General Declarations section of Form1:

         Option Explicit
   

         #Const OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Access" 'Or "Microsoft Word" or
                                ' "Microsoft Excel" or "Microsoft PowerPoint"
         'Due to limitations in the Microsoft Outlook object model, you
         'currently cannot manipulate the Office Assistant using a Microsoft
         'Outlook object.
   
         #If OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Access" Then
            'Establish a reference to "Microsoft Access 8.0 Object Library"
            Dim objOffice As New Access.Application
         #ElseIf OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Word" Then
            'Establish a reference to "Microsoft Word 8.0 Object Library"
            Dim objOffice As New Word.Application
         #ElseIf OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Excel" Then
            'Establish a reference to "Microsoft Excel 8.0 Object Library"
            Dim objOffice As New Excel.Application
         #ElseIf OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft PowerPoint" Then
            'Establish a reference to "Microsoft PowerPoint 8.0 Object
            'Library". NOTE: With this example, PowerPoint will become active
            'and visible when executed.
            Dim objOffice As New PowerPoint.Application
         #Else
            'If OfficeAppObject is NOT one of the four above items, a compiler
            'error will occur!
         #End If
   
         Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
            Dim bAssistantVisibility As Boolean
            Dim msg As String
            Dim iChoice As Integer
   
            With objOffice.Assistant
               bAssistantVisibility = .Visible
               msg = "The Office Assistant Visible Property is set to" _
                   & Str$(bAssistantVisibility) & "." & vbCrLf & vbCrLf _
                   & "Do you want to see some Office Assistant Animation?"
               iChoice = MsgBox(msg, vbYesNo, .Name)
               Select Case iChoice
                  Case vbYes
                     #If OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Access" Then
                        AppActivate "Microsoft Access", False
                        .Visible = True
                     #ElseIf OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Word" Then
                        objOffice.WindowState = wdWindowStateMinimize
                        objOffice.Activate
                     #ElseIf OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft Excel" Then
                        objOffice.WindowState = xlMinimized
                        objOffice.Visible = True
                        .Visible = True
                     #ElseIf OfficeAppObject = "Microsoft PowerPoint" Then
                        objOffice.Activate
                        .Visible = True
                     #End If
                     Call subAnimation
                  Case vbNo
                     #If OfficeAppObject <> "Microsoft Access" Then
                        objOffice.Quit
                     #End If
                     Set objOffice = Nothing
                  End
               End Select
            End With
         End Sub
   
         Private Sub subAnimation()
            With objOffice.Assistant
               Select Case Int((8 * Rnd) + 1)
                  Case 1: .Animation = msoAnimationCheckingSomething
                  Case 2: .Animation = msoAnimationGetTechy
                  Case 3: .Animation = msoAnimationSearching
                  Case 4: .Animation = msoAnimationWorkingAtSomething
                  Case 5: .Animation = msoAnimationGetArtsy
                  Case 6: .Animation = msoAnimationSaving
                  Case 7: .Animation = msoAnimationThinking
                  Case 8: .Animation = msoAnimationWritingNotingSomething
                  Case Else: MsgBox "Random number generator error.", _
                                    vbExclamation, "When I get 64"
               End Select
            End With
         End Sub
   
   

6. Press F5 to run the program and wait. After a few seconds the first prompt will appear. Click Yes to watch the Assistant animation.