How to reference Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel dll?

Moe_Al picture Moe_Al · Mar 8, 2013 · Viewed 301.3k times · Source

I had developed a system that deals with excel sheets in 2006 using MS VS 2005. Now, I can not use the same reference with MS VS 2012.

var app = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
Workbooks wbs = app.Workbooks;

Answer

Grant Winney picture Grant Winney · Mar 8, 2013

Use NuGet (VS 2013+):

The easiest way in any recent version of Visual Studio is to just use the NuGet package manager. (Even VS2013, with the NuGet Package Manager for Visual Studio 2013 extension.)

Right-click on "References" and choose "Manage NuGet Packages...", then just search for Excel.

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VS 2012:

Older versions of VS didn't have access to NuGet.

  • Right-click on "References" and select "Add Reference".
  • Select "Extensions" on the left.
  • Look for Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.
    (Note that you can just type "excel" into the search box in the upper-right corner.)

VS2012/2013 References


VS 2008 / 2010:

  • Right-click on "References" and select "Add Reference".
  • Select the ".NET" tab.
  • Look for Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.

VS 2010 References