I am looking for a non-painful way to view and modify (ideally live) the underlying object model of an Office 2007 file (document, spreadsheet, presentation, etc).The following are the "painful" alternatives:VBA
Use the VB6 editor, help files, macros, watch pane, immediate pane, etc to manipulate the underlying model.[*]The antiquated VB6 editor is painful to use.[*]You can't use Intellisense through lists (ie: \[code\]ActiveSheet.Charts(1).whatever\[/code\])Unzip Document
Rename the document to \[code\].zip\[/code\] and extract. Modify the XML via a text editor. Rezip files.[*]The XML is often poorly formatted and difficult to read.[*]Any syntax errors are difficult to diagnose.[*]Exact names for properties and preset values must still be looked up.
Use the VB6 editor, help files, macros, watch pane, immediate pane, etc to manipulate the underlying model.[*]The antiquated VB6 editor is painful to use.[*]You can't use Intellisense through lists (ie: \[code\]ActiveSheet.Charts(1).whatever\[/code\])Unzip Document
Rename the document to \[code\].zip\[/code\] and extract. Modify the XML via a text editor. Rezip files.[*]The XML is often poorly formatted and difficult to read.[*]Any syntax errors are difficult to diagnose.[*]Exact names for properties and preset values must still be looked up.