How do you automate Excel?

I was curious if there were other means besides macros/vba to automate tasks in excel such as the following:

1. Launch the Excel and print the version number
2. Switch between different tabs, and print Count of tabs.
3. User must be prompted with input box (accepts text of any tab names), and then focus must be automatically switched on to the specific tab.
4. Print different control types (For Example Ribbon, list…) with in the Excel

I'm currently working on an assignment where I have to do the above, and from the research that I've done it appears that macros may be the only way if not the best way of accomplishing this. I'm just trying to narrow things down and possibly find out if there aren't any other frameworks for automating these tasks that I may of missed?

Thank you in advance