title: How to develop a Microsoft Office AddIn without Visual Studio
body: <p>I'm trying to develop an MS Office Addin in C# .Net and I don't have access to Visual Studio.  Instead I'm using SharpDevelop as my IDE, (but my question is equally relevant to anyone developing using any other IDE or compiling from the command line...)</p>
  
  <p>I've done a bit of searching for guides on how to develop AddIns, but they all seem to require Visual Studio and follow these steps:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Install the Interop Assemblies</li>
  <li>Create a Visual Studio .Net Project (<em>I'm unable to do this bit</em>)</li>
  <li>Extend the VS <em>ThisAddIn</em> template</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>What I've managed to do is to:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Install the Interop Assemblies</li>
  <li>Create a C# empty SharpDevelop project</li>
  <li>Add a GAC reference to Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook</li>
  <li>Add a COM reference to Microsoft Office 12.0 Object Library</li>
  <li>add the line <code>using Outlook = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook;</code></li>
  <li>and the line <code>using Office = Microsoft.Office.Core;</code></li>
  <li>Look at some example code and realise that they all refer to VS templates and VSTO libraries (Microsoft.Office.Tools) which I don't have.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Where do I go from here?  Is there a guide/tutorial I've missed, or can someone provide some pointers?</p>