I’ve been looking into building an application that needs to interact with document editing services. I know Google Workspace has pretty good APIs for working with their documents programmatically.
I’m wondering if Microsoft 365 offers something comparable for their office suite. I need to be able to create, edit, and manage documents through code rather than manually.
I’ve spent some time searching online but haven’t found clear information about what Microsoft offers in terms of developer tools and APIs for their office products. Has anyone worked with Microsoft 365 APIs before? Are they as robust as what Google provides?
Any guidance on where to look or what the capabilities are would be really helpful. I’m trying to decide which platform to build my integration around.
I’ve used Microsoft 365 APIs extensively on a recent enterprise project - they’re solid but have quirks. Graph API covers most document stuff you’ll need, though the permissions are way more complex than Google’s setup. Word and Excel use different endpoints with different capabilities. Word’s API is pretty limited for complex formatting compared to Google Docs API. But Microsoft crushes Google when it comes to SharePoint integration if you need document management. Office Scripts API worked great for our Excel automation needs. Azure AD authentication is a pain to set up initially, but once you get it configured it’s not bad.
for sure! ms graph api is awesome for office 365 stuff. i’ve played around with it, and it’s pretty smooth for creating and editing docs. plus, the docs from ms are better than you’d expect!
Microsoft Graph API is exactly what you need. I’ve used it for two years - it’s solid and lets you handle Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint files through REST calls. OAuth 2.0 handles authentication, which is pretty straightforward once you figure it out. Microsoft’s docs are scattered compared to Google’s, but the API itself works well. If you’re building add-ins that run inside Office apps, check out the Office JavaScript API instead. Both give you good control over creating and editing documents. The learning curve isn’t too bad if you’ve worked with REST APIs before.