Open XML Webcasts and Videos

Previously, binary formats meant that Office documents were treated like a "black box," but now the open XML formats allow documents to serve as a first-class source of data as they travel through workflow and other business processes and solutions. Document content can now be integrated directly with systems old and new. This webcast delves into schemas, solution code, and numerous examples.

This webcast introduces the key investment areas for Office client applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Find out about the Open XML Formats, Office deployment, and integration with SharePoint Server and other systems. See overviews of the client applications, and get a look at the new Office user interface.

The goal of this lab is to show you how you can manipulate Microsoft Office programs documents using the Open XML Formats without using 2007 Microsoft Office programs. The exercises will lead you through scenarios involving programmatically manipulating documents using the Open XML Formats.

Recently, I sat down with some of the minds behind Office's Open XML to talk about Open XML, the new Open XML SDK and related stuff. What's the big deal? What's so open about it? How does it represent a major shift in the way some Office applications construct and store data? What are the implications of Open XML on interoperability (do you even need Office to open an Open XML-based Office document)?

Open XML documents are simply ZIP packages, but they follow a standardized architecture called the Open Packaging Convention. You can work with OPC packages (as used by Open XML, XPS, and various other formats) using simple tools such as WINZIP and Notepad, but if you're trying to be productive you'll find that approach tedious. Package Explorer is what you want, and it's an open-source project on Codeplex so you can get it with full source code.

Office 2007 introduced a new XML-based file format for Office. With LINQ to XML, Microsoft offers the ability to use language-based query against XML documents. When you combine these two technologies, you have the ability to search and manipulate Office documents in a completely new way. This demo/lab showcases Office Open XML and the LINQ to XML technology.

Learn the intimate details of the XML schemas that have been created to fully represent Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents in a fully accessible and interoperable way. (66 minutes, 207 MB)

See examples of how you can get powerful interoperability of data between Word, PowerPoint, and Excel via the XML formats. (49 minutes, 197 MB)

In this session, we introduce new XML capabilities, then dive into the functionality of the Office XML data store and how it can be leveraged to build solutions that will strongly tie Word documents to your business processes. (59 minutes, 180 MB)