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Office Applications and XML

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This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

The advent of the Internet has drawn attention to the fact that there is a great amount of information available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes — most of which is interesting, much of which is not available without a great deal of development effort. Sometimes, even the greatest effort has been unsuccessful in sharing the information across applications.

A primary problem with data interchange is caused by the differences in the structure of the data being shared (word documents not being the same as Microsoft® SQL Server™ data) and/or the schema of that data (last_name and LastName). XML resolves these problems by creating a data interchange format that is agreed upon by an independent standards body.

XML has proven useful as an interchange protocol because it:

  • Is readable by a human being
  • Supports dynamic content
  • Can be navigated and manipulated on the client
  • Makes it possible for partial updating of information without round trips to the server (the information is already on client)
  • Makes it possible for the exchange of data despite different platforms, applications, data formats, protocols, schemas, business rules, and so on

XML encourages the separation of business rules from data. Therefore, XML is often used as a:

  • Transient data aggregator and information normalizer
  • Persistent store for metadata
  • Means for creating an object paradigm rather than a data paradigm

XML can be used to maintain strong data requirements across sources through the expression of rich relationships, complex linking, metadata, and versioning.

The implications are that, by using XML, Microsoft Access can move information between a variety of sources without losing the metadata required to update the original source, and/or any intermediate sources. Furthermore, XML not only provides the mechanism for moving information among various products on the client, XML also makes it possible for the movement of information between the client and the server — even across servers themselves.

Data alone, however, is not sufficient; presentation of that information also is critical. Typically, presentation on the Internet is accomplished using a browser rendering HTML or DHTML. However, conditioning the data hosted within the XML file is done through XSL.

XSL is a subset of well-formed XML used for defining presentation. An XSL file will contain standard HTML formatting clauses, as well as clauses specific to finding data matches, retrieving data, and so on. XSL files can be used not only to change the presentation of the underlying XML, but also as a filter to limit the XML data displayed.

See Also

Working with XML | XML Data Import | XML Data Export | XSL: Technology Backgrounder | Access Forms and Reports Conversion | Working with XML in the Design Environment | Developing Office Developer Applications