I disagree that Office COM is the way to go. Microsoft doesn't recommend using it and you should avoid it if possible. I can tell you first hand that using it in a serious project (even windows app) will not be rewarding in the long run. Use Office COM only if your application will be used from time to time by a small number of users. If you need to create an automated document solution solution that will be in the heart of a business application then you will need to use something that is not based on Office COM. At this point you have two options: The first one is a free one using Microsft's
Open XML SDK and the second one is using a
commercial library that mostly demands the least amount of work.