I know that Silverlight 4 has support for COM interop via the AutomationFactory
class.
dynamic excel = AutomationFactory.CreateObject( "Excel.Application" );
excel.Visible = true;
But this creates a separate window for the COM object. What I am missing here is if I am actually able to actually host an Office document inside my Silverlight application - in a ContentPresenter for example?
You're not missing anything - it can't be done. You could look for converters to Silverlight of Office documents like
- TextGlow for Word (source is on
CodePlex) (2007 [and maybe
2010] format only).
- PowerPoint to Silverlight
Convertor (client side conversion,
requires PowerPoint to be installed),
also on CodePlex.
Both of these are view-only and do not come close to full fidelity - but they are a "good enough" set of options.