XML Support In Office 2003 Isn't For Everyone

0x0d0a writes "Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft's recent campaign to promote Office 2003 based on its XML support may be a bit misleading. Only the Enterprise and Professional releases will have this support -- not Standard. Microsoft will still be leveraging file format compatibility for at least another Office release."

Comments

Chant the mantra, brethren

[numbski]

"But analysts contend that WordML's compliance with industry standards is a misnomer. Because the schema isn't fully documented, people who want to edit files created in Office 2003 will only be able to do that with Office itself, as before. Text in Office 2003 files stored in XML format might be viewable in other desktop programs, but all document formatting would be lost and most other files would be unreadable."

Love thy neighbor. Embrace and extend my brothers.

Amen.

Re:I'm cringing again: XML != anyone can read it

[jkarlin]

Excellent points. I'm using the Beta of Office 2003 Pro and I just saved 'Hello World' as an Office XML file. Thought it would be nice to actually see what we're talking about.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<w:wordDocument xmlns:w="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/ 2003/2/wordml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:SL="http://schemas.microsoft.com/schemaLibra ry/2003/2/core" xmlns:aml="http://schemas.microsoft.com/aml/2001/c ore" xmlns:wx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word /2003/2/auxHint" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C1488 2" xml:space="preserve"><o:DocumentProperties><o:Titl e>Hello World</o:Title><o:Author>Jason Karlin</o:Author><o:LastAuthor>Jason Karlin</o:LastAuthor><o:Revision>1</o:Revision><o: TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime><o:Created>2003-04-13T23: 29:00Z</o:Created><o:LastSaved>2003-04-13T23:29:00 Z</o:LastSaved><o:Pages>1</o:Pages><o:Words>1</o:W ords><o:Characters>11</o:Characters><o:Lines>1</o: Lines><o:Paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs><o:CharactersW ithSpaces>11</o:CharactersWithSpaces><o:Version>11 .4920</o:Version></o:DocumentProperties><w:fonts>< w:defaultFonts w:ascii="Times New Roman" w:fareast="Times New Roman" w:h-ansi="Times New Roman" w:cs="Times New Roman"/><w:font w:name="Tahoma"><w:panose-1 w:val="020B0604030504040204"/><w:charset w:val="00"/><w:family w:val="Swiss"/><w:pitch w:val="variable"/><w:sig w:usb-0="21007A87" w:usb-1="80000000" w:usb-2="00000008" w:usb-3="00000000" w:csb-0="000101FF" w:csb-1="00000000"/></w:font></w:fonts><w:styles>< w:versionOfBuiltInStylenames w:val="3"/><w:latentStyles w:defLockedState="off" w:latentStyleCount="156"/><w:style w:type="paragraph" w:default="on" w:styleId="Normal"><w:name w:val="Normal"/><w:rPr><wx:font wx:val="Times New Roman"/><w:sz w:val="24"/><w:sz-cs w:val="24"/><w:lang w:val="EN-US" w:fareast="EN-US" w:bidi="AR-SA"/></w:rPr></w:style><w:styl e w:type="character" w:default="on" w:styleId="DefaultParagraphFont"><w:name w:val="Default Paragraph Font"/><w:semiHidden/></w:style><w:sty le w:type="table" w:default="on" w:styleId="TableNormal"><w:name w:val="Normal Table"/><wx:uiName wx:val="Table Normal"/><w:semiHidden/><w:rPr><wx:fon t wx:val="Times New Roman"/></w:rPr><w:tblPr><w:tblI nd w:w="0" w:type="dxa"/><w:tblCellMar><w:top w:w="0" w:type="dxa"/><w:left w:w="108" w:type="dxa"/><w:bottom w:w="0" w:type="dxa"/><w:right w:w="108" w:type="dxa"/></w:tblCellMar></w:tblPr></w:style>< w:style w:type="list" w:default="on" w:styleId="NoList"><w:name w:val="No List"/><w:semiHidden/></w:style><w:sty le w:type="paragraph" w:styleId="BalloonText"><w:name w:val="Balloon Text"/><w:basedOn w:val="Normal"/><w:semiHidden/><w:rsid w:val="4E5A63"/><w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val="BalloonText"/></w:pPr><w:rPr><w:rFont s w:ascii="Tahoma" w:h-ansi="Tahoma" w:cs="Tahoma"/><wx:font wx:val="Tahoma"/><w:sz w:val="16"/><w:sz-cs w:val="16"/></w:rPr></w:style></w:styles><w:docPr> <w:view w:val="print"/><w:zoom w:percent="100"/><w:doNotEm

Maybe next year...

[b3h]

This is what happens when you have complete market control. Why innovate when you can duplicate and still rake in hundreds of dollars per copy of the same suite you released last year?
OpenOffice, the world needs you!

OO output

[IamTheRealMike]

For comparison, here is the equivalent (empty) document in OpenOffice.

content.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-content PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd">
<office:document-content xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:style="http://openoffice.org/2000/style" xmlns:text="http://openoffice.org/2000/text" xmlns:table="http://openoffice.org/2000/table" xmlns:draw="http://openoffice.org/2000/drawing" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:number="http://openoffice.org/2000/datastyle " xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:chart="http://openoffice.org/2000/chart" xmlns:dr3d="http://openoffice.org/2000/dr3d" xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:form="http://openoffice.org/2000/form" xmlns:script="http://openoffice.org/2000/script" office:class="text" office:version="1.0">
<office:script/>
<office:font-decls>
<style:font-decl style:name="Arial Unicode MS" fo:font-family="'Arial Unicode MS'" style:font-pitch="variable"/>
<style:font-decl style:name="HG Mincho Light J" fo:font-family="'HG Mincho Light J'" style:font-pitch="variable"/>
<style:font-decl style:name="Nimbus Roman No9 L" fo:font-family="'Nimbus Roman No9 L'" style:font-family-generic="roman" style:font-pitch="variable"/>
</office:font-decls>
<office:automatic-styles/>
<office:body>
<text:sequence-decls>
<text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Illustration"/>
<text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Table"/>
<text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Text"/>
<text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Drawing"/>
</text:sequence-decls>
<text:p text:style-name="Standard"/>
</office:body>
</office:document-content>

meta.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-meta PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-meta xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:meta="http://openoffice.org/2000/meta" office:version="1.0"><office:meta><meta:generator> OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 (Linux)</meta:generator><!--SRC641_[7663]_LINUX_IN TEL__stripples.devel.redhat.com_at_9/10/02_8:50:05 --><meta:creation-date>2003-04-14T09:09:00</meta:c reation-date><dc:language>en-GB</dc:language><meta :editing-cycles>1</meta:editing-cycles><meta:editi ng-duration>PT0S</meta:editing-duration><meta:user -defined meta:name="Info 1"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 2"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 3"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 4"/><meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="0" meta:image-count="0" meta:object-count="0" meta:page-count="1" meta:paragraph-count="1" meta:word-count="0" meta:character-count="0"/></office:meta></office:d ocument-meta>

That is only 2 out of the 4 or 5 files openoffice saves. Oh, and for all those who made sucky Base64 jokes about MS WordML, take a look at this:

<config:config-item config:name="PrinterSetup" config:type="base64Binary">ugL+/0dlbmVyaWMgUHJpbnR lcgAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAU0 dFTlBSVAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWAAMAAAIAAAAA