At 10:32 PM 2/24/02 -0600, Jack Ungerleider wrote: >On Sunday 24 February 2002 22:15, Joshua b. Jore wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Hmm ok, but if Microsoft starts writing XML instead of it's proprietary > > binary format then that will be *oodles* of fun when you throw XSL at it. > > The whole point of XML is so you can do stuff like XSL (from my > > perspective which involves getting multiple disparit systems talking to > > each other). > > > >That assumes that the XML definition they create is not just a wrapper to the >proprietary binary format. This was one of the suggestions I heard a couple >of years ago when it was first annouced that the office formats, with the >exception of databases (mdb) would move toward XML. No one expected Microsoft >to make it easy for people to read write Word or Excel documents without the >given program. I can testify that it IS oodles of fun. I'm using Microsoft's Visio 2002 which allows documents to be saved in XML format instead of the proprietary, binary, un-indexable Visio format. At last, I can grep for server names in thousands of network diagrams at once, and set up any one of hundreds of text search engines to index the collection. The graphical entities are stored in a base64-type field (at least that's what it looks like), but all labels are clear text. Also, it's 100% valid XML according to all the XML and XSL tools I've thrown at it. Downside is that the XML files are huge compared to the proprietary Visio format. They bzip nicely though :) Can't speak for Office as I don't run the XML-enabled version. -- Carl Patten