Stephen Oliver has announced that the Open XML SDK 2.5 CTP for Microsoft Office, a pre-release build of the next version of Open XML SDK 2.0, is now available for download!  From his blog post:

Most applications built with the Open XML SDK 2.0 will work with the Open XML SDK 2.5 CTP without any changes to your code. However, as several changes were made to the Open XML SDK 2.5 to support the new file format extensions, the software prerequisites were changed. You should verify the compatibility of your applications with the Open XML SDK 2.5 CTP before updating them.

What's new in Open XML SDK 2.5 for Microsoft Office?

  • New classes for file format extensions in Microsoft Office 2013 Preview
  • Built on .NET Framework 4.0
  • Reads the ISO Strict Format
  • License changes (deployment to hosting services, distributable file)*
  • Fixes to Open XML SDK 2.0 (e.g. whitespaces in .pptx document file) 

The Download Page and Setup Instructions for the Open XML SDK 2.5 CTP are available at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30425 

* The distribution of any files from the Open XML SDK 2.5 CTP are not permitted. At the next release of the Open XML SDK 2.5, the license for the distribution and the deployment to cloud and hosting services will be updated.

We'll be exploring this new release in blog posts in the near future.

-Eric