Lesson 3: ActiveX Documents

ActiveX Document Functionality

The word "document" in the term "ActiveX document" is somewhat misleading. While a traditional document (such as a Word document) is static, ActiveX documents need not be. Using ActiveX documents, you get functionality of the application and the flexibility of a document's behavior. When a user opens an ActiveX document, the full functionality of an application, as well as the ability to store and distribute "copies" of the data intrinsic to the application is available.

For example, a Word document is not the same as the Word application. The Word document (with the extension .doc) contains the actual content, whereas the Word application (Winword.exe) is used to create the document.

In addition, a Word document can be viewed in other containers such as Internet Explorer. In this case, the Word application supplies the objects that enable Internet Explorer to view and activate the document. The same mechanism works for ActiveX documents created with Visual Basic.