Office 2003 XML [Paperback]

Simon St. Laurent (Author), Evan Lenz (Author), Mary Mc Rae (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 2004

In Microsoft's Office 2003, users experience the merger of the power of the classic Office suite of applications with the fluidity of data exchange inherent in XML. With XML at its heart, the new version of Microsoft's desktop suite liberates the information stored in millions of documents created with Office software over the past fifteen years, making it available to a wide variety of programs.

Office 2003 XML offers an in-depth exploration of the relationship between XML and Office 2003, examining how the various products in the Office suite both produce and consume XML. Developers will learn how they can connect Microsoft Office to others systems, while power users will learn to create and analyze XML documents using familiar Office tools.

The book begins with an overview of the XML features included in the various Office 2003 components, and explores in detail how Word, Excel, and Access interact with XML. This book covers both the user interface side, creating interfaces so that users can comfortably (and even unknowingly) work with XML, and the back end, exposing Office information to other processes. It also looks at Microsoft's new InfoPath application and how it fits with the rest of Office. Finally, the book's appendices introduce various XML technologies that may be useful in working with Office, including XSLT, W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG, and SOAP. Office 2003 XML provides quick and clear guidance to a anyone who needs to import or export information from Office documents into other systems. Both XML programmers and Office power will learn how to get the most from this powerful new intersection between Office 2003 and XML.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Evan Lenz is principal of Lenz Consulting Group, an XML consulting firm. He's author of XSLT 1.0 Pocket Reference and co-author of Office 2003 XML, has served as invited expert on the W3C XSL Working Group, and most recently has taken on XBRL consulting projects, for clients including XBRL International. Lenz Consulting Group provides an array of services including content strategy consulting, custom XML training, XML information modeling, XQuery, XSLT, and XSL-FO development, specification design, and representation on standards bodies.

Mary McRae is the Director of Technical Committee Administration for OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, and as such provides front-line support for OASIS committees and the standards they produce. She works with OASIS TC chairs, guiding them through the OASIS technical process and helping them reach the goals and objectives of their charters. Mary also serves on the OASIS Technical Advisory Board. She joined the OASIS staff in 2004, but she has been an active member of the Consortium since 1995, serving on the OASIS Board of Directors in 1999. Mary became involved in structured markup languages in 1992, while working for Butterworth Legal Publishers, where she mastered the nuances of document analysis, DTD development, structured editors, and content management systems. Later, as Vice President of XML Solutions and Principal XML Technologist for DMSi, she used her skills at project management, needs analysis, requirements definition, product selection, schema development, application customization, and training to help clients avoid the pitfalls she encountered herself as an early adopter. Sandwiched in between, Mary was the Manager of Sales Support for Xyvision (now XyEnterprise), focusing on SGML/XML content management solutions. Mary is co-author of "Office 2003 XML" and a frequent speaker at industry conferences. In her spare time, Mary is a textile artist. She is based in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, USA.

Simon St. Laurent is a web developer, network administrator, computer book author, and XML troublemaker living in Ithaca, NY. His books include XML: A Primer, XML Elements of Style, Building XML Applications, Cookies, and Sharing Bandwidth. He is a contributing editor to XMLhack.com and an occasional contributor to XML.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 588 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media (June 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596005385
• ISBN-13: 978-0596005382
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #80 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > XML

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much nicer way to get at MS Office data, June 19, 2004

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Office 2003 XML (Paperback)

Hurrah! Microsoft has said for several years that it strongly supports XML. Well MS Office 2003 is one of the first major products that conforms to this. As you probably know, earlier versions read and wrote to Microsoft's own doc format. A binary format. Third party developers then had to write code to read and write files in this format. Doable, but certainly an aggravation to some, given the complexity of the format.

Which is why MS Office 2003 was eagerly awaited. Now, XML is a fully supported data format. It also lets you see in an easy and direct way the complexity of deciphering the doc format, if you had never tried to do that firsthand.

Here, the book walks you through the various XML outputs and their associated schemas. There is the usual XML verbosity. (No surprises here.) But you can now read, in plaintext, how the suite structures its code in an OO fashion. So much nicer!

Not that the book is trivial. Many examples show how a lot of XML's capabilities are used. Like namespaces, XSLT, XSL and XPath. A reassuring point is that your needs might not have to extend to all these usages. The book also has many very simple XML examples that could be germane.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for end-users and developers, July 28, 2004

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Office 2003 XML (Paperback)

I've read the Addison Wesley book on Microsoft's new Office XML standards and this book is much much better. The book covers four applications; Word, Excel, Access and Infopath. It covers both the storage XML format for Word and Excel, as well as the use of XML within Word and Excel itself from the end-user side. The coverage of the storage format is excellent, and that, being a developer, is something I can appreciate.

For end-users of Word and Excel who are just looking to consume XML in your document or spreadsheet, or to mine XML using Infopath, this is a well written book that is worth your money and you can ignore the technical segments. For engineers looking to work with the new Microsoft XML storage formats you will find a lot to like here, and you may just find some cool things to do with XML to do on the forward facing end-user side of the house.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good concise introduction to Office XML and Smart Documents, February 7, 2006

By 

R. Stokes "technology consultant" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Office 2003 XML (Paperback)

This book provides a good overview of Microsoft's Office XML formats. In addition to covering these formats, it also provides some useful material related to Microsoft Office smart documents, an extension mechanism for Microsoft Office applications.

Note: Microsoft Office XML is completely distinct from the Open Office.org XML format (OASIS OpenDocument) which is not covered in this book.