Hi RobinC,

I have an Excel add-in that will become a retail product.

Congratulations, and good luck

1) Does VBA support the use of resource files (string tables,...)?

No.

If not,
is the best way to access localized resources through a helper ActiveX
component that can get at resources?

That depends how and when you want the strings to be localised. Using a
helper ActiveX component is great if you want to be able to perform the
localisation independent of/after the build, but most people just include a
worksheet that contains a translation table - one column per language and
some sort of ID in the first column.

2) Is there a way to compile and resolve references for the add-in outside
of Excel. I'd like to automate the build process using makefiles/scripts.

Not entirely 'outside of Excel', but by automating Excel within the script
and manipulating the Workbook.VBProject.References collection.

Regards

Stephen Bullen
Microsoft MVP - Excel
www.oaltd.co.uk