[ANN] Microsoft To Use XML as Default Format for Office 12 Documents

[Gerald Bauer <gerald.bauer@mac.com>]

Hello,

     Allow me to highlight the latest ServerSide.Net story titled 
"Microsoft To Use XML as Default Format for Office 12 Documents". Paul 
Ballard writes:

  Microsoft has announced that they will be using an open XML based file 
format as the default storage for Office 12 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 
documents. The schema for the documents is scheduled to be announced 
soon and will be openly licensed similarly to the current Office 2003 
XML formats.

The new documents will have extensions similar to the previous documents 
with an "X" at the end of the extensions, so for example Word documents 
will be ".docx". The files will actually contain the XML in Zip 
compressed format. You will be able to rename the document to ".ZIP" to 
view the XML.

The older binary document format will still be available for those who 
don't choose to move to XML but the XML document will be the default 
format. Microsoft is planning a conversion utility to move older files 
to the new format in batch mode as well as viewers for older versions of 
Office to be able to use the new file formats.

Licensing for the XML schema will be royalty-free. Microsoft Office 12 
is scheduled to ship in the last half of 2006.

To learn more about Office 12 Open XML Format, visit Brian Jones' Blog

   Full story @ http://www.theserverside.net/news/thread.tss?thread_id=34286

    - Gerald

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