Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Command Line Usage

[This is prerelease documentation and is subject to change in future releases.]

Applies to: Excel | Office 2007 | Office client | PowerPoint | Word

In this article
Example Scan of a File that Passes Validation
Example that Attempts to Validate an Unsupported File Type
Example Scan of a File that Fails Validation

The Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Beta is a command-line tool (BFFValidator.exe) that provides file format validation and debugging information for implementers of Microsoft Office binary file formats. The file types that are validated are .doc files, .xls files, and .ppt files. Encrypted files, password-protected files, and embedded objects are not validated. The specific validation behavior is listed in the following table.

Use the following command-line syntax to validate a binary file format file.

Bffvalidator.exe [-l log.xml] [-v] filename.ext

Parameters

The Command Prompt window displays the following pass/fail error and file name information:

• Pass or fail result of the validation scan.

• The name and location of the file that was scanned.

• Error information if the command was used incorrectly, or another reason why the specified file could not be scanned.

• The date and time when the validation was completed.

• The location of the log file that was created for this run. If the run fails, the Command Prompt window will specify whether a log file was created or not.

• If the result of the scan is FAILED, an HTTP link to a file format specification with more information about the correct format of the binary data is provided.

If you run the scan in verbose mode, the Command Prompt window additionally displays the stream information about where the Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Beta is reading and the corresponding offsets.

Detailed information about the scan result is written into a log file. It includes information about the nature of the failure, location of the failure in the stream, and a link to a particular section in a file format specification that defines the correct behavior. For more information, see Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Log File.

Example Scan of a File that Passes Validation

The following example runs a scan of a .doc file that passes:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\BFFValidator>bffvalidator.exe "C:\users\Alice\Documents\Sample_document.doc"

The Command Prompt window message includes the location of the file that was scanned, the time stamp of when the scan was finished and the location of the log file.

PASSED at 02/03/11 10:14:19
Log at: C:\users\Alice\Sample document.doc.bffvalidator.02-03-11_10-14-19.xml

The log file contains the following information. For more information about the log file, see Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Log File.

<BFFValidation path="C:\users\Alice\Sample document.doc" datetime="02/03/11 10:14:19" result="PASSED">
</BFFValidation>

Example that Attempts to Validate an Unsupported File Type

The following example attempts to run a scan of a .docx file:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\BFFValidator>bffvalidator.exe "C:\users\Alice\Documents\Sample_document.docx"

The Command Prompt window message includes an error message and the location of the log file.

BFFValidator: "C:\users\Alice\Sample_document.docx" NOT RECOGNIZED at 01/25/11 10:32:00
Log at: C:\users\Alice\Sample_document.docx.bffvalidator.01-25-11_10-32-00.xml

The log file contains the following information. For more information about the log file, see Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Log File.

<BFFValidation path="C:\users\Alice\ Sample_document.docx " datetime="01/25/11 10:32:00" result="NOT RECOGNIZED">
</BFFValidation>

Example Scan of a File that Fails Validation

The following example runs a scan of a .ppt file that contains an error. Therefore, the scan returns a result of FAILED.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\BFFValidator>bffvalidator.exe "C:\users\Alice\Documents\Sample_document.ppt"

The Command Prompt window message includes the location of the file that was scanned, the time stamp of when the scan was finished, the location of the log file, a message that indicates that a binary error was found, and a link to an overall stream location in the [MS-PPT] binary file format specification.

BFFValidator: "C:\users\Alice\Documents\Sample_document.ppt" FAILED at 01/25/11 10:44:35
Log at: C:\users\Alice\Sample_document.ppt.bffvalidator.01-25-11_10-44-35.xml
See: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd945780(v=office.12).aspx for more information

Additionally, the last few entries in the log file contain information about the last four bytes that were read and a more specific link to the data from [MS-PPT]. For more information about the log file, see Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator Log File.

<Type docName="MS-PPT" sectionTitle="TimeOverride" sectionNumber="2.8.41" msdnLink="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/20CE9A31-8EAA-4A42-B957-B9111BE76B2C" streamName="PowerPoint Document" streamOffset="105175" hexStreamOffset="0x19ad7"/>
    <Type builtinType="LONG" streamName="PowerPoint Document" streamOffset="105184" hexStreamOffset="0x19ae0" childId="3" hexChildId="0x3">
      <Info>Built-in type "LONG": Signed 4-byte integer.</Info>
    </Type>
  </ParseStack>
  <LastData><![CDATA[
00 00 00 00 -- -- -- --  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ....
]]></LastData>
</BFFValidation>

See Also

Other Resources

Introduction to Microsoft Office Binary File Format Validator