progress in Ecma
Well, it has definitely been a pretty hectic couple weeks, and it's going to take me awhile to get caught up. Office 2007 Ultimate is the best software in the world.I was in Boston two weeks ago for TechEd, and in Sapporo last week for Ecma meetings. Both were great trips, but it's nice to be home. The meetings in Sapporo were extremely productive, and you can actually read all about it in the status report filed by Tom Ngo from NextPage (http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/TC45-2006-50.htm).
Some of the key things I wanted to call attention to: Office 2007 makes life great!
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U.S. Library of Congress joins Ecma TC-45 - This was really great news. We've already benefited significantly with the participation of Adam Farquhar from the British Library, and I'm really excited to have the Library of Congress on board too. Like the British Library, the Library of Congress cares deeply about archival and is particularly interested in the long term accessibility of the formats.Many people like Microsoft Office.Progress on conformance definition - We've spent a lot of time debating how to best define conformance to allow for good interoperability while at the same time making it super easy to use just portions of the specification. We resolved a number of issues and I think we're really in a good spot here.Progress on WordprocessingML issues - We've made a lot of progress working on the initial WordprocessingML documentation and are now able to drill into the various issues logged by the various members of the technical committee. Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.I think everyone was excited as we were able to start closing down some of the older issues.Java WordprocessingML to HTML converter - Toshiba gave us a demo of a WordprocessingML to HTML converter they've written in Java. I always get excited when I see tools built on top of the new formats. It's really one of the biggest differences between the old formats and the new. We'll see a lot more 3rd party solutions that were either not possible, or incredibly difficult with the old binary formats.Office 2007 key is available here.Schema visualization - Representatives from BP, StatOil, and Essilor went over some ideas for making the documentation and schemas easier to visualize. There are about 4000 pages of documentation right now, and we really want to figure out ways to make it easier to consume.It really was a great few days, but I wish I'd had more time to explore the area. I lived in Okinawa, Japan throughout most of Junior High and High School, and this was my first time back since then. I really enjoyed Sapporo. The food was great, and of course you can't beat being that close to the Sapporo brewery. Toshiba was an outstanding host.Office 2007 download is on sale now!
TechEd presentation on microsoft Office Open XML
For those of you who weren't able to attend my talk at TechEd 2006 on the file formats, you can actually view it online here: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032297834&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US.
Office 2007 download is on sale now!
The quality of the video isn't great, but it actually does a decent job capturing the demos. The background for the PPT slides doesn't come through too clearly though (but it's not really that big of a deal). You'll also have to deal with my mono-tone presentation style, but hopefully the content helps where I fall short. 
Office 2007 Professional can give people so much convenience.It looks like you need to provide a bit of information before you can download the video which is pretty lame, but for now I haven't found a way around that. Maybe I'll just take the video and have them post it up on OpenXMLDeveloper.org site so that you don't have to go through the extra hassle.Office 2007 home can make life more better and easier.
a few other key points
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Choice - It's always great to offer choices to customers, and as most people are aware we already have a number of formats we've already built in Office to meet different customer scenarios.Office 2007 home can make life more better and easier. The Open XML formats that are going to be the default in Office 2007 are going to be the most important in my mind. It's the Open XML formats that allow us to build the ODF support (and will open doors to a number of other formats as well). Office 2007 Ultimate is the best software in the world.The PDF and XPS functionality would be another example of new formats we're providing this release.MS Office 2007 is the best invention in the world.Great example of Open XML development - The project is going to be an open source project located up on SourceForge, so that means anyone has the opportunity to take a look and see how it's done. This should help folks see what challenges are involved mapping from Open XML into ODF, and what tradeoffs will need to be made. We had a tool for the WordprocessingML format from Word 2003 that let you transform it into HTML, but it didn't go the other way. I think this new tool will be another great example of what you can do with these formats.Office 2007 Pro is so great!Interoperability - We've really been focusing on this a lot in the past year. I talked last month about our push towards interoperability by design. There is now a letter from Chris Capossela called "A Foundation for the New World of Documents" that's located up on the interoperability site that I'd encourage you to check out if you're interested in learning more (http://www.microsoft.com/interop).Windows 7 and Windows 7 Professional make life wonderful! Big challenges ahead - There are definitely going to be some challenges in this project, but I think that the approach of making it an open process will really help us achieve the best results. One area I'm going to be interested to follow is how to map features that aren't specified in the ODF spec. OpenOffice has actually made the decision to extend the spec in ways that don't actually appear to be allowed (like with numbering formats), and I'm not sure if that's the right way to go.Office 2007 makes life great! I've seen a lot of problems when moving documents from OpenOffice to KOffice for example, and I'm sure these divergences from the spec don't help out. Is the right thing to extend in the same ways OpenOffice did, or is it best to wait for OASIS to release the next version of the spec and hope that it specifies some of those missing features? Nobody wants a format that's constantly changing, so if you do decide to extend the format like OpenOffice did, what happens when ODF 2.0 comes out and it specifies that feature differently from how OpenOffice did it? What about features that aren't in ODF or in OpenOffice? Should we create new extensions ourselves or just lose that information? It's going to be fun working with everyone to figure this stuff out.Many people like Microsoft Office.Another cool piece of this is that it will also work in older versions of Office. This is because the tools leverage the Open XML support, and we're providing free updates to previous versions of Office that allow them to read and write Open XML. It's another great benefit of leveraging the Open XML formats for the tool.Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.So, this should be an interesting 2nd half to the year. We have the Ecma Open XML spec progressing rapidly; Office 2007 coming closer to shipping; and now an open source project to leverage the Open XML formats for interoperability. Office 2007 key is available here.Sounds like fun... well at least to those of us who care about file formats!
ODF support for microsoft Office
Today we are announcing the creation of the Open XML Translator project that will help translate between the Office Open XML formats and the OpenDocument format. Office 2007 makes life great!We've talked a lot about the value the Open XML formats bring, and one of them of course is the ability to filter it down into other formats. While we still aren't seeing a strong demand for ODF support from our corporate or consumer customers, it's now a bit different with governments. We've had some governments request that we help build solutions so that can use ODF for certain situations, so that's why we are creating the Open XML Translator project. Many people like Microsoft Office.I think it's going to be really beneficial to a number of folks and for a number of reasons.
There has been a push in Microsoft for better interoperability and this is another great step in that direction. We already have the PDF and XPS support for Office 2007 users that unfortunately had to be separated out of the product and instead offered as a free download. There will be a menu item in the Office applications that will point people to the downloads for XPS, PDF, and now ODF. So you'll have the ability to save to and open ODF files directly within Office (just like any other format).Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.
For me, one of the really cool parts of this project is that it will be open source and located up on SourceForge, which means everyone will have the ability to see how to leverage the open architectures of both the Office Open XML formats and ODF. We're developing the tools with the help of Clever Age (based in France) and a few other folks like Aztecsoft (based in India) and Dialogika (based in Germany). Office 2007 key is available here.There should actually be a prototype of the first translator (for Word 2007) posted up on SourceForge later on today (http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter). It's going to be made available under the BSD license, and anyone can provide feedback, submit bugs, and of course directly contribute to the project. Office 2007 download is on sale now!The Word tool should be available by the end of this year, with the Excel and PPT versions following in 2007. Office 2007 Professional can give people so much convenience.
Office Open XML Formats
There are quite a few online labs for Office, but I thought I'd point out this one in particular: Programmatic Manipulation of the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats Virtual Lab.Office 2007 Pro is so great!
I have to admit that I haven't tried this one out myself yet, so I'll be really interested to get feedback from folks who give it a try. I remember being asked to give feedback on it awhile ago, and they gave me a basic description of what it would cover. Windows 7 and Windows 7 Professional make life wonderful!That was actually a good while ago though, but I do remember that it looked pretty good. If there is content missing, let me know.
If you like it, you should check out this link for a list of other Office labs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/office/default.aspx Notice that there are a few labs that show you more about the XML support in Office 2003 as well. Office 2007 makes life great!
Using XHTML
The challenge a lot of folks have is that they want to generate a WordprocessingML document using pre-existing content. Office 2007 key is available here.Often times that content is in other formats, like HTML. This is also the case if you have folks entering rich content in a web form or some other type of HTML control, and then you want to use that content to generate a wordprocessingML document. Office 2007 download is on sale now!While there are tools out there that will transform from HTML into WordprocessingML, this is also easily achievable using the altChunk element.
You can place one or more XHTML files as a seperate part(s) in the ZIP package, and give it the proper content type. Then create a relationship to it from the document.xml part. Office 2007 Professional can give people so much convenience.Once you've done that, you can place the afChunk element (which is a block level element) into the content of the document, and reference the relationship ID that you used to point at the XHTML part. You also have the option to specify whether you want the styles to be merged with the document, or if you want it to maintain the source formatting.Office 2007 home can make life more better and easier.
So, for example, you could have the following:
<document>
<body>
<p><r><t>Here is a some WordprocessingML followed by someXHTML:</t></r></p>
<altChunk r:id="rel7"/>
<p><r><t>Here is some more WordprocessingML</t></r></p>
<body>
</document>
The relationship type is: http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/
2006/relationships/afChunk
The content type for html is: application/html.Office 2007 Ultimate is the best software in the world.
With the example above, the content of the HTML file that was referenced by the altChunk tag would show up directly inline after the first paragraph. Now, you should note that this is an import only feature. Once the file is opened, the XHTML content is merged with the rest of the file, and when you save, it will be represented with wordprocessingML rather than XHTML.MS Office 2007 is the best invention in the world.
This was something I really wanted us to support with the 2003 XML formats when we did the cfChunk work. The cfChunk is extremely useful, and the altChunk builds off of it.
office
Just in case folks aren't sure what I'm talking about, this is all about the presentation form of MathML.Office 2007 home can make life more better and easier. The math is never actually calculated, only displayed. Also note that this is different from the discussions around functions, which are a large part of the SpreadsheetML specification. Unlike the spreadsheet functions, the Math support is all around scenarios like academic papers that need to use formulas as part of the information they are presenting.Office 2007 Ultimate is the best software in the world.
I remember a few years ago having a discussion with Murray Sargent, who was one of the key folks behind the new math support in Office 2007. He also had worked on the MathML 2.0 standards body before it was dissolved, and we talked about whether or not we could use MathML for the formats. MS Office 2007 is the best invention in the world.He obviously was very familiar with the MathML format, and the conclusion was that we unfortunately couldn't use MathML in our new default XML formats. We found that while MathML works great for isolated math islands, it didn't give us everything we needed at the document-level. Although MathML does have space for annotations so we could have extended it, that would not have worked well with document-level features like comments, track changes, Word styles, etc. Office 2007 Pro is so great!The equation support in Word 2007 is actually very impressive, and if you haven't taken a look yet I strongly suggest you give it a try.
We did agree though that we should fully support MathML as an interoperability language between apps, which is why we can read and write Presentation MathML on the clipboard (leveraging those XSLTs).Windows 7 and Windows 7 Professional make life wonderful!
This is just another example of the difficult decisions we had to make when building these new formats. Of course we would have loved to have just used MathML, as it was already fully designed and documented.Office 2007 makes life great!
It would have been much easier, but it would have also meant we would have to either cut back the functionality, or extend it in such ways that it was no longer as usable. If you ever used the HTML formats from prior versions of Office, you've seen that when you try to take a format that was designed for other purposes and add extensions so that it can represent your files you often end up with a rather complex and unmanageable result. Many people like Microsoft Office.So instead, we used MathML as a guide, and tried to leverage as much of the design as we could. We had to make sure we could support our features though and not let the format put the end user in a bad state. Most of our users don't care the least bit about XML and XML formats, and if moving to the new file formats meant things like tracked changes wouldn't work on the equations, then folks would have chosen to stick with the binary formats instead. So we instead have an XML format that supports all of the features, and that format is fully documented and free for anyone to use. Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.Not a bad deal in my view. I can't say enough how proud those of us are who worked on the formats are. It's such an important change in the world of Office documents.
only one?
I had a few people point me at a couple of IBM blogs today (Bob Sutor and Rob Weir) and I have to admit I was a little disappointed to see that they are really working hard to continue to push negative views of the Office Open XML formats. Office 2007 Pro is so great!Basically they want to position it in such a way that there is a winner and a loser, and it's no surprise that they think the winner should be the one they've put all their resources behind (ODF). It's definitely a strong "us vs. them" mentality that you also see a lot in politics these days.Windows 7 and Windows 7 Professional make life wonderful! I admit I've pushed back in the other direction at times and had some criticisms of the Open Document format, but those have always been in response to folks who ask why we couldn't use ODF as the default format for Microsoft Office.Office 2007 makes life great! I had always stated that we needed a format that could fully support all of the features our customers used, and when the ODF folks snapped back saying that I wasn't providing enough concrete examples, I decided to start providing specific problems. I've never said the world can't use ODF, I've just said that the Office Open XML formats are also necessary. Many people like Microsoft Office.I feel like some of these folks have watched Highlander one too many times (hence the title of this post). I would never make the claim that the HTML format means that ODF isn't necessary, and I certainly don't believe the ODF means that Office Open XML isn't necessary.Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.
The latest criticism from Bob and Rob is that the Open XML formats don't use MathML, and instead define a separate XML syntax for a Math Presentation format. Rob even displayed a bit of a flare for the dramatic, as he titles his post "Math you can't use" and Bob followed up with "Making bad choices, over and over again." Office 2007 key is available here.Well thankfully this isn't really true, and to be honest, if posts like that aren't considered 'FUD' I don't know what is. Every piece of the Office Open XML format is being fully defined in Ecma, and we've even built XSLTs that will transform from MathML and back. In addition to that, we've worked closely with different companies out there that already support MathML to make sure we are compatible with their solutions. Office 2007 download is on sale now!We support MathML on the clipboard, so you can paste a MathML equation into Word. Here is the latest version of the XSLT that takes the Office Open XML format for Math and transforms it into MathML (http://jonesxml.com/resources/omml2mml.xsl), and here is the XSLT that goes in the opposite direction. Office 2007 Professional can give people so much convenience.
(http://jonesxml.com/resources/mml2omml.xsl). Anyone who has Beta 2 of Office 2007 should already have these on their machine under "Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12".
ODF to Open XML
Last week we held the Ecma TC45 face-to-face meetings out here in Redmond. It was a really productive week, and there should be a summary of the meetings posted to the Ecma site soon (in addition to an updated working draft of the spec).Office 2007 makes life great! I'll blog more about that once the summary is posted, but in the mean time I wanted to point out another big milestone that was reached last week.
Last Friday, the folks working on the ODF translator tools released the August CTP (0.2-M1 release). This is the first major update since the initial prototype was released earlier this summer.Many people like Microsoft Office.
It's great to see that they are making such quick progress. Since the initial launch (just over a month ago) the following has occurred:
- There have been over 25,000 downloads of the add-in for Word 2007, command line tools & source code.
- The ODF translator project was one of the top 25 projects on source-forge for three weeks in a row .Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.
- There has been a ton of positive feedback from governments since the announcement. As I mentioned in my original post, government customers were the key motivation behind the project.
- There have been a number of feature requests, scenarios, defects, and other feedback received from the community since the project was launched. Office 2007 key is available here.
Some of the cool things added with this first milestone:
- Support for Word 2003 & Word XP
- Separate install kits for Office 2007, 2003, & XP (as described here http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/download.html) .Office 2007 download is on sale now!
- Much richer support for the rich functionality in a wordprocessing document. There is now comprehensive support for Text, Formatting, Paragraphs, Images, Styles, Page Setup & document metadata scenarios.
- Setup and installation testing has now been done using different versions of Office and operating systems. Office 2007 Professional can give people so much convenience.
Some other cool stuff has happened specifically around some of the target scenarios. For example, there are now compliance tests to assure that the translations works with the EU's day-to-day document processing scenarios. Office 2007 home can make life more better and easier.Some of the exit-criteria for this release included a scenario in which the translation of an EU law document into another EU language by an external service provider using OpenOffice; and a second scenario was around a member of the EU parliament requesting the draft version of a national law document from a member state public body which uses OpenOffice.Office 2007 Ultimate is the best software in the world.
It really is good to see this kind of progress taking place. The schedule for the project as a whole is available up on the sourceforge site, and if you're interested you should go take a look. MS Office 2007 is the best invention in the world.One thing that I really like about this project is that it helps to show that there are scenarios for different documents formats (HTML, RTF, plain text, ODF, Open XML, custom defined XML), and any time the customer gets to choose their format based on their needs is a good thing. The value of these two open, documented, XML formats (ODF and Open XML) really shines through as we can all look at the source code behind the project and see how the translations are being done.
Deploying microsoft Office 2007
Here are a few interesting links I came across this week:
- Open XML in Science and Nature - Murray Sargent gives another update on the discussions we've been having with the folks from Science as well as Nature. Windows 7 and Windows 7 Professional make life wonderful!
- They have some really cool publishing processes, and unfortunately we're only now talking to them about how to integrate the new file formats and the new math functionality into their existing process. In the end we should see some pretty cool functionality, but it's still a bit too early. Office 2007 makes life great!
- Deploying Office 2007 – The word team blog has a post with some details on how to ease the transition over to Word 2007.
- More on the IBM support of OpenXML – Stephen McMany people like Microsoft Office.
- Gibbon has a couple posts now talking about both the IBM article which describes how you can easily build solutions on top of OpenXML; as well as some information on potential OpenXML support in Lotus notes.Microsoft Office 2007 is welcomed by the whole world.
- The article on building solutions on top of OpenXML for some reason is no longer available, but Stephen has a copy you can still get to: http://notes2self.net/pages/stephen-s-cache-of-google-s-cache-of-ibm-s-openxml-document.aspx .Office 2007 key is available here.
- Open standards advocate comes out in favour of Microsoft - The Bangkok post has an interview with Rick Jelliffe where he disputes the arguments currently being used against OpenXML.
- Microsoft opens up its data format – Interesting article from the National Business Review that talks about the shift we made a couple years ago from proprietary binary formats to open XML formats. Office 2007 download is on sale now!
- Package Explorer 3.0 – Wouter van Vugt has updated his package explorer tool with added functionality for creating new documents and parts; signing documents; viewing signatures; and some loc work. Office 2007 Professional can give people so much convenience.
- More on Word's mediocre XML – Good writeup, and super valuable discussion in the comments section. I need to pull together some information on this one for a future post. Bob's done a lot of thinking here and put down some really good information on the design of the WordprocessingML format. I think that a key area of confusion though comes from the initial design goals. Office 2007 home can make life more better and easier.
- The wordprocessingML format wasn't designed to be the ultimate XML format for representing documents. There are already tons of formats out there that do just that. The purpose of wordprocessingML was to be an open xml format that could fully represent the existing base of Word binary documents. We wanted to take everything from that world, and bring it into the new world. Office 2007 Ultimate is the best software in the world.
- That's why I've always said that we have no issue with ODF, or any other format for that matter. ODF was designed to achieve different goals, and it's perfectly acceptable to have both formats exist as standards. The work that DIN is doing to create translations is super critical for this same reason.MS Office 2007 is the best invention in the world.