Open XML

The Open XML SDK is a powerful tool for processing Office documents. This unit provides an overview of the benefits and architecture of Open XML and the APIs and tools (on many different platforms) that a developer can use to build document-based solutions using this format. The Open XML SDK which is provided by Microsoft and other community-based developer resources are highlighted.

• Open XML Programming Lab

  Now with both C# and VB code samples! In this lab you will create a SharePoint event handler that will automatically mark an Open XML document as finalized when its status has changed to completed. This is a common practice in the final steps of a workflow or other process that is intended to move the document through a specific lifecycle.

• Introducing Open XML

  This video introduces you to the interoperability of documents and the Open XML file formats. It also discusses the benefits of using Open XML.

• Open XML Architecture

  This video drills into the architecture of Open XML, file formats packaging, file extensions, reference and custom schemas and how to manage data using Open XML.

• Open XML Tools and APIs

  This video provides guidance on the tools and APIs available for Open XML. The Open XML SDK is provided by Microsoft but other tools are also available from the community and are discussed here.

• Introduction to Open XML SDK 2.0

  This video provides an overview of the Open XML SDK 2.0 but focuses on the practical benefits of using the SDK for solution development rather than the technical details of Open XML. It also provides an introduction to the Open XML Productivity Tool that can be freely downloaded and can help streamline your development effort. The video discusses key concepts to keep in mind when developing with the SDK and rounds out the discussion with a demo that uses the SDK to pull data out of an Excel workbook and generate Word performance appraisal documents for employees. The Word performance appraisal documents are based on a Word template that has content controls to receive the Excel data. The solution runs on the client machine.

• Open XML SDK 2.0 Solution Development

  This video focuses on solution development with the Open XML SDK 2.0 including a survey of the tools to help you be more productive. The video discusses how to use the Productivity Tool, the Open XML Package Editor Power Tool for Visual Studio 2010 and the code snippets that can be downloaded which cover many common tasks that can save you programming time. The video rounds out how the client-based solution in Part 1 can be moved to run under SharePoint 2010, coupled with Word Automation Services, to produce a highly scalable server-based solution for document generation.