OpenXML Developer

Codeplex project to assist in Word document manipulation: DocX

jenw — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:02:00 GMT

On Codeplex (a great source of useful projects for all sorts of development things) there is a project called DocX.

To quote the author, Cathal Coffey, "DocX is a .NET library which allows developers to manipulate Word 2007 files in an easy and intuitive manner." He goes on to say "It does not use COM libraries nor does it require Office to be installed" and does not rely on the Open XML SDK

Check it out at http://docx.codeplex.com

New library article: Use Ruby on Rails and XSLT to transform XML

jenw — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:04:00 GMT

We now have an example of Open XML document generation using Ruby on Rails here. This is a reimplementation of a previous sample originally written in C#. The new sample, as were the earlier samples, generates a fancy patient report in Word from data contained in an HL7 XML data file, similar to a mail merge. As an aside, now we have the three implementations of the same sample, showing just how open “Open XML” really is: C# implementation is here Java implementation...(read more)

New library article: Use PowerTools for Open XML to view C# code in a .NET application

jenw — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:28:00 GMT

A new article shows how you can use the code under the hood of PowerTools for OpenXML in a .NET application. PowerTools provided rich PowerShell functionality for simplifying scenarios such as joining documents with a single command. This article, with included code shows, will show you how you can do the same with a single .NET method call instead of from a PowerShell script. The article takes the functionality of an earlier article that does some interesting document...(read more)

New library article: Using PHP and Facebook

jenw — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:18:00 GMT

A code sample in PHP has just been uploaded to the site. The sample creates an Open XML Spreadsheet out of Facebook data. The code was built using the downloadable PHPExcel library on CodePlex at http://phpexcel.codeplex.com/. The article explaining this shows that you can achieve this or similar functionality with only a few lines of code using PHP. Click here for the article and source code.

New library article: Introduction to SDK 2.0

jenw — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:28:00 GMT

Ever wondered what the Open XML SDK 2.0 has to offer? Here James Newton-King gives an introduction to the Open XML SDK 2.0, and a couple of tools within the SDK that will make working with Open XML easier and more fun.

Read it here.

Office 2010 for Developers: Office Developer Conference moving to SharePoint Conference 2009

jenw — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Two noteworthy pieces of news:

1. Want an indepth look at Office 2010 or a insight into the 64-bit offering? Office 2010 will be highlighted at upcoming Sharepoint conference (October 2009, Las Vegas, NV) and at TechEd conferences around the world in 2009 and 2010.

2. The Office Developer conference will merge with the Sharepoint Conference this year ... so there will be no specific Office Developer conference. All the content will be included in the Sharepoint conference.

New library article: XSLT transform using Java

jenw — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:36:00 GMT

We have a new sample on the site written in Java. The code creates an Open XML document using an XML data file, document as a template and XSLT. This sample duplicates an earlier sample which was written in c#. The XML data file is a sample of the international HL7 standard and the document produced is a nicely formatted health clinic report.

Read it here.

New library article: Use PHP to create Open XML Spreadsheet reports

jenw — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:59:00 GMT

Using Maarten Balliauws's PHPExcel SDK http://www.codeplex.com/PHPExcel and various formats created by financial applications and online banking websites this article will show you how to create an Excel spreadsheet with some basic functions and conditional formatting.

Simple OpenXML Library - using the Simple OOXML Library to create new documents

jenw — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:22:00 GMT

There is a recent project on Codeplex called Simple OOXML Library - http://simpleooxml.codeplex.com - that enables the creation of Word and Excel documents using the Open XML SDK v2.0.

In the words of creator, James Westgate, the project 'provides a layer of abstraction over version 2.0 as a set of simple classes and methods to create new spreadsheet (Excel) and word processing (Word) files with the following benefits:

No Excel or Word is required on the server.
No in-depth knowledge of the OOXML standard or SDK is required.
New documents can be created or existing templates can be modified.
Ability to stream directly to the browser or between servers
High performance

The following table outlines the classes used to create and read office open xml documents:

DocumentReader	Static functions used to create new word processing documents.
DocumentWriter	Static functions used to paste text items into a word processing document using bookmarks and save the document to a stream or file.
SpreadsheetReader	Static functions to create new spreadsheet documents and to retrieve worksheet, column and row references. Get style and defined name range parts.
SpreadsheetStyle	Create an object that can set style, color and font information in a spreadsheet and retrieve and compare style parts.
SpreadsheetWriter	Static functions to create style parts in a spreadsheet, control shared strings and helper functions when working with spreadsheet documents
WorksheetReader	High level and static fucntions to retrieve cell and style information from a worksheet.
WorksheetWriter	High level and static functions to write text, numeric and datatable based values to a worksheet. Draw borders, insert rows, merge cells and set print areas.

OpenXMLDeveloper.org now on Twitter

jenw — Sun, 03 May 2009 01:54:00 GMT

Open XML Developer is Tweeting
Follow us on Twitter for the latest tidbits of Information from Open XML Developer.
We'll be tweeting news and information about Open XML for developers as well as pointing out particularly useful threads from the Open XML Developer forums.
http://twitter.com/openxmldev

Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 2 released

jenw — Fri, 01 May 2009 02:08:00 GMT

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 2 (SP2) gives customers the latest updates to the Office Compatibility Pack for the Microsoft Office Word 2007 Open XML file format, for the Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Open XML file format, and for the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Open XML file format.

This service pack includes two main categories of fixes:

Previously unreleased fixes that were made specifically for this service pack.
Note In addition to general product fixes, these include improvements in stability, in performance, and in security.
All the public updates, security updates, cumulative updates, and hotfixes that were released through February 2009.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953331

PowerTools for Open XML v1.1.1 source code released

jenw — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:21:00 GMT

PowerTools for Open XML v1.1.1 source code is now available. PowerTools for Open XML is an open source project on CodePlex that enables creation and processing of Open XML documents using PowerShell.

This is a minor release that addresses four issues - read more.

InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INSITS) votes Open XML IS29500 as an American Standard

jenw — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:51:00 GMT

The US vote to adopt Open XML - IS29500 - as an American National Standard closed on evening of Wednesday 15 April. As as result Open XML IS29500 is the newest American National Standard.

The vote was a 12 yes / 0 no / 2 abstain / 4 not yet split. Full results can be found at http://ballot.itic.org/itic/tallyvote.taf?function=vote&committee=INCITS&ballot_id=3025&_UserReference=B1C55B9B4013124949E6A7C5

April Open XML 2.0 SDK Community Technical Preview is released

jenw — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:18:00 GMT

April 2009 Open XML SDK 2.0 CTP permits Open XML documents to be validated in addition to the manipulation of the Open XML document content released in earlier CTP. The validation support is designed to help reduce the possibility of invalid or corrupt Open XML files.

Open XML SDK 2.0 April 2009 Community Technical Preview (CTP) is available for download here.

New Article: Generating a document using PowerTools for Open XML and PowerShell

jenw — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:24:00 GMT

In this article Lawrence Hodson demonstrates how, using Powertools for Open XML and Powershell, it is possible to create a simple SLA report.

The script conditionally assembles a an SLA or system status report document based on on live WMI (Windows Management Interface) data. The article is cool because it shows PowerShell doing both WMI and OpenXML together.

Check it out here