XML

[Bobby Z]

I just read that the next version of Microsoft Office will use
Internet-friendly XML technology as the default file format for documents
created in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Will this make it easier to e-mail
PowerPoint presentations to people that don't have PowerPoint installed on
their PC and to add PowerPoint presentations to websites?

 

[John O]

I just read that the next version of Microsoft Office will use

Internet-friendly XML technology as the default file format for documents
created in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Will this make it easier to e-mail
PowerPoint presentations to people that don't have PowerPoint installed on
their PC and to add PowerPoint presentations to websites?

I don't see XML offering many benefits to end-users. If MS actually dumps
..doc/.ppt in favor of XML, it will make file transfers insanely complicated.
Imagine sending someone a complete website, which they must place on a HDD
and open with a browser...

Remember a few years ago MS said the same thing about html, and that hasn't
quite worked out like they imagined. We now have nice html exporters, but
it's huge and proprietary html code. Useful, but not life-changing. With de
facto file standards already in place, I never saw the point anyway.

XML is a powerful tool for specific applications, but it's not likely to
ever be a user-level technology.

This is all nothing more than my personal and highly-biased opinion.

-John O

 

[Shyam Pillai]

Until more details emerge, website reports suggest that XML will be the
default format however users will have the option to use to conventional
format to be backward compatible.

Office 12 to Get New File Formats
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1822667,00.asp

For now, users without PowerPoint can still download the free PowerPoint
2003 viewer.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I don't see XML offering many benefits to end-users. If MS actually dumps
..doc/.ppt in favor of XML, it will make file transfers insanely complicated.
Imagine sending someone a complete website, which they must place on a HDD
and open with a browser...

There's always MHT, a kind of filing-system-within-a-file format that lets you
ship a whole PPT pressie's worth of HTMl and supporting files inside a single
file. Whether your browser of choice will know what to make of it is another
story ... ;-)

XML should be interesting if it permits users (developers, really) to, in
effect, write their own PPT files.

 

[John O]

XML should be interesting if it permits users (developers, really) to, in

effect, write their own PPT files.

That would be a completely new thing! I can see this being quite a deal for
constructing new docs from XML-enabled databases and all sorts of
things...enterprise-type stuff.

That article is interesting...they're going to bloat into XML, then zip the
files. Not too big a deal there, really, but I wonder if this isn't also a
way to push that new PDF-killer file format. It might also have something to
do with the EU and their anti-trust issues. Will be fun to watch where this
goes, in any case.

Hafta watch what Dvorak says. ;-)

-John O

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

That article is interesting...they're going to bloat into XML,

I didn't know the verb "bloat" applied here. It seems to me that "XML" and
"Bloat" are synonymous nouns. ;-)