How to manually install the SOLIDWORKS PDM Microsoft Office Add-in

SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional includes a Microsoft Office Add-in for Office products such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint that allows you to perform PDM vault commands on open documents.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Menu in Microsoft Word

You can select the Microsoft Office add-in (Microsoft Office Integration) option when installing the SW PDM client if Office applications are detected on the system.

Microsoft Office Add-in Integration

Manual installation of Microsoft Office Integration

If the SOLIDWORKS PDM installation wizard was not able detect the Office applications, you can manually install the add-in by following the instructions provided below:

Step 1: Verify your MS Office version is 32-bit or 64-bit. The best method is to open the Office application and go to File, Help, and view the About information. It should state if the application is 32-bit or 64-bit as shown in the figure below:

Office Version Information

Step 2: Browse to the SOLIDWORKS Downloads folder and look for the folder “SWPDMClient” folder

SOLIDWORKS download folder

Step 3: Locate the Office add-in .CAB files and open Office.cab for 32-bit Office or Office64.cab for 64-bit Office products.

Step 4: Extract epdmlib.dll and office.dll into the SOLIDWORKS PDM Installation directories

• For 32-bit Office applications, folder location C:\Program Files (x86)\SolidWorks PDM
• For 64-bit Office applications, folder location C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS PDM
  • For 64-bit Office files, rename the files to epdmlib.dll and office.dll.

Step 5: Start a command prompt and Run as Administrator

Run as administrator

Step 6: Change the location to the installation folder where the two files were copied and type the following commands (followed by Enter keystroke):

• regsvr32 epdmlib.dll
• regsvr32 office.dll

Command prompt entries

PDM Add-in enabled in office application

Step 7: Start the Office application and the SOLIDWORKS PDM add-in tab should now show up.

• If the Office add-in is missing, follow the instructions to manually turn on the add-in.

NOTE: If the SOLIDWORKS PDM tab still does not load, try restarting the system.