Does VSTO work on Windows Azure?

Question

I have a web application to be deployed to Windows Azure, and I'm looking for alternatives to create Excel spreadsheets.

Can I use VSTO to programmatically generate an Excel spreadsheet in a web role running on Windows Azure? ... If so, how can I deploy the application on Windows Azure? What assemblies should be included?

Answer 1

I tested this and apparently will not work, VSTO requires the installation of Office.

Answer 2

Joni and Joe are true. VSTO will not work on Azure.

I believe you are looking for the Open XML SDK . This allows you to create Excel or other Office files from .NET without using Office automation.

Edit: Here is one of the options that I considered in those moments when the Open XML SDK simply does not have the function that I can get from direct access to the object model of the Office application. Configure a machine outside of Azure that works the same as the Azure worker role, processing messages from Azure Queue. Since the application on this machine can be configured to perform tasks sequentially, you must get away from things that are inappropriate if you are trying to run the Office application from a web role. This machine may be in your data center, or you can use Azure VM so you can install Office. If this virtual machine created and / or read Excel documents, simply use the Azure Blob repository to store documents.

If your Office machine is outside of Azure, you will incur additional bandwidth costs for all data coming in and out of Azure.

Answer 3

I was able to create Excel Sheets in Azure using an open source EPPlus project . It is based on the OpenXML SDK, but is much easier to use.

I deployed the code for the worker role instead of the role on the Internet (according to Lokad.CQRS for the Azure architecture ) to pregenerate reports, so the application will be more scalable. And the only necessary build was Epplus.dll .