Office Open XML
Template: Infobox file format / Maintenance / Magic number is missing
ISO / IEC 29500-1:2008, ISO / IEC 29500-2:2008, ISO / IEC 29500-3:2008, ISO / IEC 29500-4:2008
Office Open XML (ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats and ISO / IEC 29500 Information technology - Office Open XML formats ) is a standard developed by Microsoft open standard for XML - based file formats for storing office documents, data and files sharing between should allow different office application packages.
The format specification has been submitted to Ecma International for standardization of Microsoft. This took place on 7 December 2006 Ecma standard ECMA- 376.
First published as ISO / IEC 29500 on 19 November 2008. Previously the standard for office documents OpenDocument has been set. OOXML is in contrast to OpenDocument to map the working knowledge of Microsoft Office.
Prehistory
Thanks to the prevalence of Microsoft Office have the related file formats Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc. established itself as a de - facto standard for document exchange.
The structure of this Office formats was not open documents, but had to be licensed from Microsoft. As the cost and especially the license terms are not acceptable to all providers, some competitors were (especially open source projects ) are forced to figure out the structure of the file formats through reverse engineering. Because of the reverse engineering problems associated with, and the fact that the file formats are closely linked to the internal operation of the Microsoft Office applications, may cause faulty production and display of file contents by competing applications. Meanwhile, Microsoft has released the specification of the formats.
In order to simplify the automated creation and processing of Microsoft Office spreadsheet documents, an XML-based file format was introduced (XML Spreadsheet ), which, however, only able to save a portion of the Excel functionality with Microsoft Excel 2002.
XML support has been extended with Microsoft Office 2003 and new XML-based file formats were introduced, especially in Microsoft Word.
The XML-based file formats have been updated for Microsoft Office 2007 and appointed as the new default file format. This file format is the basis of Office Open XML.
This is also based on XML and standardized in 2006, ISO / IEC 26300 ( OpenDocument 1.0 or abbreviated ODF) is rejected by Microsoft because, among other things too much on the file format - and thus the operation and the range of functions - is based on OpenOffice.org and was not suited to map all existing Microsoft Office documents.
Proponents of ODF hold the contrary, however, that ODF could map all properties of Microsoft Office documents by proprietary incompatible extensions.
Standardization
For some time - especially by governments ( for example, the U.S. state of Massachusetts) or the EU - demanded that in future only documented open, vendor-neutral, standardized file formats should be used to avoid lock-in effects and to ensure interoperability and the long-term access to file contents to ensure. Because of these requirements, Microsoft has submitted the Microsoft Office 2007 file format of the Ecma International for standardization. The standardization is done there as part of the Technical Committee 45 ( TC45 ).
The standardization process Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, the The United States Library of Congress, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil ASA and Toshiba are involved.
Office Open XML was approved on 7 December 2006 by the Ecma International General Assembly as Ecma standard 376.
In December 2006, the Office Open XML has been submitted to ISO as ISO / IEC CD 29500 on standardization in summary proceedings ( JTC 1 Fast Track Process). In a vote in September 2007, it could not achieve the necessary approval to be accepted as an ISO standard.
After a scheduled meeting in February 2008 - at the numerous comments has been encountered that have been submitted to the vote in September 2007 - was for the ISO voting members by the end of March 2008, the ability to change their original voter. As part of the national polls has been repeatedly reported irregularities. The FFII Microsoft threw before so to replenish the standardization bodies of various countries with straw men. In Norway, the national standards body is said to have ignored an unambiguous rejection of 21 and No 2 votes by its members.
In an open letter ISO/IEC-SC-34-Mitglieder have disapproved of the charges against her personal attacks during the standardization process.
As the ISO announced on 2 April 2008, the draft standard has received the necessary majority of votes and was first accepted as an ISO draft standard ISO / IEC DIS 29500. The national standards organizations of South Africa ( SABS ), Brazil ( ABNT ), India and Venezuela, however, have been made within the prescribed time limit protests against the publication of ISO / IEC 29500 as the norm. A decision by the competent bodies on the appeals was announced for the end of June 2008; until then the standardization and publication was suspended. On 15 August 2008 the ISO announced that the objections of the national standards organizations were rejected and the standard is now released for publication. An implementation of the standard exists not yet, and Microsoft Office 2007 does not meet all requirements. Publication as an ISO / IEC 29500 was made on 19 November 2008 in four parts: There is now a new edition was published in the September 2012.
- ISO / IEC 29500-1 - Office Open XML File Formats - Part 1: Fundamentals and Markup Language Reference
- ISO / IEC 29500-2 - Office Open XML File Formats - Part 2: Open Packaging Conventions
- ISO / IEC 29500-3 - Office Open XML File Formats - Part 3: Markup Compatibility and Extensibility
- ISO / IEC 29500-4 - Office Open XML File Formats - Part 4: Transitional Migration Features
The four documents can be downloaded as a publicly available free at ISO standards.
Licensing
Like all the Ecma International standards is Office Open XML freely available and distributable.
In a covenant not to sue Microsoft has stated that it irrevocably to enforce all patents necessary for a compliant implementation of the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas specification over parts of programs that implement this specification, omitted. The law firm of Baker & McKenzie has reviewed on behalf of Microsoft, among others, the content and validity of the covenants, and found in a study that no license is required in order to use Office Open XML can.
In addition, Microsoft has included the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas and the Office Open XML 1.0 ECMA -376 specification in the Microsoft Open Specification Promise (OSP ). In the OSP Microsoft promises to waive the enforcement of patents over parts of the program that implement the specifications listed. The OSP, however, only refers explicitly cited by Microsoft versions of the respective specifications. Moreover, this is not true for any claims of third parties.
According to Software Freedom Law Center, the promise would only extend to new versions if Microsoft involved in standardization activities. By terminating the standardization activities on the part of Microsoft, the promise would be void.
Construction
Office Open XML consists of a specification for a container format, the Open Packaging Conventions, and a number of XML-based markup language for the individual components of an office application package. Office Open XML documents are stored in packages that comply with the Open Packaging Conventions. A package is a ZIP file that contains all the components (parts and items ) of a document.
Parts are the individual components ( building blocks ) of the contents of the document (text, graphics, images, etc. ), while items are descriptive metadata that specify to be how the individual components of the document compiled and presented. Items can be divided into relationship items and content-type items. Relationship items describe how each part related, that is, how the individual components of the document must be assembled, while specify content-type items the content-type of the individual components, ie, how the individual components are shown need. Each Office Open XML document consists of a main part (main component ) and possibly from other components that are referenced from the main part about a relationship item. The structure, name and path (within the ZIP file ) of the main parts depends on the type of Office Open XML document from (word processing document, spreadsheet, document, etc.).
The markup languages
- WordprocessingML for word processing documents
- SpreadsheetML for spreadsheet documents
- PresentationML for presentation documents
- DrawingML for drawing documents
- VML for drawing objects inside other documents
And a number of auxiliary markup languages for Custom XML Data Properties ( to store arbitrary XML in a package ), file properties, mathematical formulas and bibliographic references.
A minimal Office Open XML word-processing document in the root directory of the zip file to an XML file named / [ Content_Types ]. Xml and three directories / _rels / docProps and a directory with the actual document data.
Office MathML ( OMML )
Office Open XML using the XML - based markup language MathML Office ( OMML ) for describing mathematical formulas.
The following Office MathML example describes the fraction:
A metadata instance ( docProps / core.xml ) according to the Dublin Core standard:
Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X only support the outdated version of ECMA -376 1st edition of Office Open XML, which has been rejected by the ISO, the ISO 29500 standard is not fully supported. Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows the first time allows read access to files according to ISO standard 29500, but the standard is fully supported only in Microsoft Office 2013 for Windows. For older Microsoft Office versions (version 2000), Microsoft offers a " Compatibility Pack ", which makes it possible to read the not ISO-compliant format and write.
A number of other programs supported Office Open XML formats, so far the compatibility with outdated version of ECMA -376 1st edition available in all implementations in the foreground and not the implementation of the ISO standard.
Such other office suites with Office Open XML support are SoftMaker Office 2010 ( import and export. Docx, import. Xlsx), Corel WordPerfect Office from version X4 ( import only), ThinkFree Office from version 3.5, OpenOffice. org version 3.0 and the OpenOffice.org spin-offs NeoOffice and LibreOffice. Apple supports Office Open XML files in their iWork Office Product Version '08 and TextEdit in Mac OS X 10.5.
The Document Viewer TextMaker Viewer 2010 can open, view and print Office Open XML files. It also allows the conversion of these files into PDF format. The Gnumeric spreadsheet and the word processor AbiWord offer import and export functions.
In June 2008, an SDK from Microsoft has made available for Office Open XML. It allows the processing, conditioning, testing and modification of the data. The SDK 1.0 is based on. NET 3.0. Contrary to some reports no Office product is needed for use.
Criticism
Criticized here is the scope of the specification with more than 6000 pages. Critics assume that it is virtually impossible for other software vendor to implement the file format is correct and complete in their applications.
In addition, Office Open XML does not use the W3C MathML recommendations for formula representation or SVG for the representation of vector graphics, but stores these elements developed by Microsoft formats. Critics assume that only Microsoft can implement the specification in its entirety, while competing products can only implement subsets.
In addition, the norm contradicts some ISO standards, such as the standard for the representation of date and time or the standard for the abbreviation of names of languages. In addition, it is argued that Office Open XML could contradict as a whole of an ISO standard existing, namely the ISO / IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document ).