Call a function of a .js library from an Office script - office-scripts

I'm trying Office Scripts.
I have a big .js file as a library, assume there is a function calc(x). I would like to be able to call this function from an Office script.
Does anyone know if it is possible? Does anyone know how to upload the .js library to Office Scripts?

If it is just a single .js file - as a temporary workaround, you can probably copy the whole thing and paste inside the Office Scripts code editor (you can put it before or after the main function). Then you can invoke calc(x) from inside main().
It's not ideal but might work.

Per this link they're not currently supported. (See the External Library Support section): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/scripts/overview/code-editor-environment

Related

Referencing VBA code in .vb files (with UiPath Invoke VBA activity)

So I'm not sure if this question requires knowledge on the UiPath software in order to be answered or not. I have been developing a lot of Excel macros for my company, and as I get more and more macros, it's harder to manage them.
We have been working on some robots as well within the company, and I notice that the robot has an activity where you can invoke VBA code within an Excel application scope. This activity reads a .vb file with code and invokes whatever method you specify within that file as a macro in the activated Excel application.
Ideally I would want to extract all my VBA code into separate files, and have the robots execute the macros through this activity. This would make it a lot easier to manage the code.
My question is then, if it is somehow possible for me to also extract the modules I've created that contain utility methods that I repeat throughout many macros into a .vb file, and reference this in the other macro files?
I don't know exactly how this activity invokes the code and what restrictions are placed on it. Within Excel, I can store re-usable methods in modules and call on them from other modules. This is what I want replicated on a file level. If there was some way of adding import statements to the top of the code to retrieve methods from other modules, so I could call them within the file.
My worries (and assumption) is that the activity simply reads it as a text file, and just imports it as a macro right into Excel. That if I wanted to reference any modules within my method, the modules would have to already exist in the Excel application.
I could always paste the utility methods into every .vb file, but that sort of defeats the purpose of making it easier to manage.
Is there anything I can do here?
Thanks,
TRS
You definitely can reference external assemblies (.dlls) in UiPath. I haven't done it with VB.Net Projects, but I have done it with C# Projects which is in this case, the same thing.
Please, follow this tutorial: https://www.uipath.com/kb-articles/how-to-include-external-dll
To be able to generate the .dll, you will need to download Visual Studio Community Edition and follow a couple of tutorials on how to compile VB code.
All your VB code will exist in this .dll. This would be your general repository or main library that you would access every time that you need it. As I understand, this is your main goal anyway right? "To access utility methods".
I don't know if inside your macros, you use specific Excel references that could lead to compilation issues. So, be ready to reference everything that you need inside the code.
At the end, to access your custom methods, you would need to reference the .dll and use the activity called: Invoke Method.
I hope this helps.

Batch file for inserting macro's

I am trying to create a batch file as icon on desktop, that would open a specific excel file, create a macro in it and copy code from a specific txt file into it.
The reason i need this, is that the file is located on a server and the ending .xlm cannot be cahanged (should not) so i cannot save it as a macro enabled file (to store a macro in it )
Could annyone with better understanding please explain to me how to create the said code ?
Thanks in advance!
In theory it's possible by using the VBE object (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa443984%28v=vs.60%29.aspx). But that's not activated by default so you can not ensure that each user is able to do that.
Better find other solutions for that problem. Can you upload .XLSB for example? Or do you have another kind of server available - for example a database server - you can use for storing the file? We use this method here for deploying our updates on AddIns and report templates for example.

Is it possible to store reusable VBA code in a library and call from Outlook?

I have code written in Outlook 2010 VBA that I want to share with co-workers (an Outlook rule runs that calls the code, which saves the current e-mail to a network folder as a text file). What I would like to do is save the VBA code in a library somewhere on the network, and have Outlook call it there. This way, others can call the same code and there is one set of code that all instances of Outlook can point to. If you can point me to info on setting this up I would appreciate it!
I do a similar thing in VBscript programs, using executeglobal to basically run a file containing the functions (acts like an include file) and am looking for how to do it in VBA.
Well it seems its not as easy as I was hoping. After perusing the links supplied by MP24 (Thanks MP24!), I learned the Outlook OTM file is not really intended to be shared. It errored for a colleague when I saved it to a network drive and she tried to use it via tools/references. To share code, one can export it as a .bas file, and another user can import it. This will add it to their own code if some exists already. The proper way seems to be to write an add-in, but that is beyond the scope of what I need for what I am doing. So, if a colleague wants to use my code I'll export and they can import it. The trouble is if I change something they will have to delete it and re-import. Oh well.

Possible to create thumbnails of MS Office files?

Have anybody ever tried to create thumbnails/previews of MS Office files? I do not mean extract saved preview images inside the file, but actually create them. Would this even be doable?
Could one print to an image/pdf directly in code?
In a general VB/C# application, add the MSword/MSexcel component and call the component to open the file you want. Then call one of the print functions with the parameters corresponding to first page etc.
This link shows how to open a .xls from C#

Can I use RegFree Com with an application written in Excel VBA?

I have an application that is written in Excel VBA, myApp.xls. Currently we use InstallShield to distribute the application. Since we are moving to Windows Vista, I need to be able to install the application as a standard user. This does not allow for me to update the registry during the install process. In addition to the excel application we also have several VB6 applications. In order to install those applications, I was able to use RegFree com and Make My Manifest (MMM) as suggested by people on this forum (I greatly appreciate the insight btw!). This process, although a bit tedious, worked well. I then packaged the output from MMM in a VS '05 installer project and removed the UAC prompt on the msi using msiinfo.exe. Now I am faced with installing an application that basically lives in an Excel file. I modified a manifest that MMM created for me for one of my VB6 apps and tried to run the excel file through that, but I did not have much luck. Does anybody know of a way to do this? Does RegFree com work with VBA? Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
Yes, it is possible to use registration-free COM through VBA, on Win2k3+.
Fundamentally, reg-free says "this COM class no longer needs to be registered to be discoverable, instead registration info will be carried by a manifest".
Manifests themselves are implictly referenced by executables when they are embedded in the executable, or named *.exe.manifest.
However, in the case of VBA -- your code doesn't live in an executable you control, so you need another way to get a reference to the manifest.
That's where the Microsoft.Windows.ActCtx object comes in - it specifically allows you to instantiate your object given an explicit manifest reference.
For example (in JS, since I'm rusty on VBA syntax):
var actCtx = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.Windows.ActCtx");
actCtx.Manifest = "myregfree.manifest";
var obj = actCtx.CreateObject("MyObj");

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