ProductsXMLSpyOffice Open XML

XMLSpy provides powerful support for accessing, editing, transforming, and querying XML data saved in Microsoft® Office 2007 documents and other zipped files.

With the introduction of the Office Open XML formats in Microsoft Office 2007, the vast amount of business data stored in Office files such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations is now saved as XML. This is a huge advantage for both business users and application developers, because, though business users still work with information through the familiar Office user interface, all their data is now standards-based and highly interoperable.

Each Office 2007 document is stored in a zip archive that includes the user data in XML and other files with style information, images, etc. XMLSpy allows you to extract, edit, transform, and process the XML data stored in Office 2007 files (as well as any other zipped archive). These capabilities allow developers to work with the vast amount of data stored as XML in Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 documents with full validation, intelligent entry helpers, and other useful features, and develop XSLT and XQuery transformations to publish the data or utilize it in other applications.

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Archive View

The XMLSpy Archive View provides native support creating and editing zipped archives such as Office 2007 (and higher) or WinZip files. Individual files in the archive can be opened from the Archive View, edited in one of XMLSpy's editing views, and then saved directly back to the ZIP archive. You may also add and delete files and folders in the archive.

The Archive View displays included folders in an expandable tree view, and documents contained in the selected folder are listed with size and data details. Below that, an info window can be toggled on or off to view general information about the zipped archive, such as the number of files it contains, its uncompressed and compressed sizes, and the compression ratio, as well as document meta data (i.e., properties) for Microsoft Office 2007+ files.

Editing Microsoft Office 2007 XML data

XMLSpy allows you to edit Open XML data in existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents (version 2007 or higher), or you can create new Office 2007+ documents from scratch.

Whether you prefer to work in Text View or Grid View, XMLSpy provides intelligent editing features including code auto-completion, intelligent entry helpers, validation, and more. Drop-down menus and entry helper windows offer valid editing choices depending on your location in the document, and the Info window offers an explanation of each element and its use in Office 2007+ files.

If you’re editing a file from an existing archive, it’s automatically written back to the zip file when you hit Save. Or, you can add a new file via the Archive View.

Transforming and processing Office 2007 data

In addition to intelligent XML editing, XMLSpy includes robust support for XSLT 1.0/2.0 and XQuery development, debugging, and profiling, allowing you to develop and test transformations and queries against Office 2007+ data. This support will allow developers to, for example:

• Create an XSLT 2.0 transformation to publish data in a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document on the Web or your corporate intranet.
• Manually edit some Word XML data and save it back to an Office 2007+ format to test the outcome of changes that will be made in an application being developed
• Use XQuery to extract and aggregate financial data from an Excel document and provide it in an XML form suitable for mapping to EDI messages or Web services functions
• And much more

XMLSpy even includes sample XSLT 2.0 and XQuery files that allow you to experiment with processing Office 2007+ files. The screenshot below shows an Excel file that has been transformed to HTML using an example XSLT stylesheet in XMLSpy.

What’s more, in addition to extracting and reusing the data inside XMLSpy, developers can use the royalty-free AltovaXML engine to execute XSLT and XQuery transformations on Office XML data in their own applications.

These capabilities are extremely important and useful. XMLSpy is the first tool that allows developers to unleash all the power of XSLT 2.0 and XQuery on the vast, ever-increasing amount of data stored in Microsoft Office 2007+ documents. The ability to access and work with Office 2007+ data gives you a head start on developing applications that utilize and process what will be the predominant business data format.

Start working with Office XML data stored in Microsoft Office 2007+ documents today - Download a free 30-day trial of XMLSpy.

Note: XMLSpy also includes support for converting documents from previous versions of Microsoft Word and other legacy data formats into XML.