Office 2003 XML

Rating:
Summary: Much nicer way to get at MS Office data
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for end-users and developers
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: If you think you might need it - BUY IT
Review: This book answers a very specific need - you are working with the new Office xml formats. If you are directly reading or writing WordML, SpeeadsheetML, or the other xml formats - stop what you are doing, buyt this book, and read it. It will put you miles ahead.

Clear, concise, and about as complete as it can be with Microsoft's incomplete documentation to work from. I had it open on my desk next to me the whole time I was working with these file formats.

It has some stuff for InfoPath and Office WebServices. I didn't read those part but the rest is so well written I would bet that part is indespensible too.