Oliver Bell’s Weblog

Both Doug Mahugh and Eric White have some info on this, version 2.0 of the SDK for Open XML is now available as a CTP, you’ll find it here.

Some of the new features include;

The OpenXmlDiff utility identifies differences in the markup in two Open XML documents.

The Open XML Class Explorer helps you determine which strongly typed class to use for a specific task, and includes the text of the relevant section of the ECMA-376 spec for each class.

The Open XML Document Reflector takes a target document as input, and with a few clicks it shows you the C# code needed to generate that document (or a section of it) with the Open XML SDK. This tool will be a huge time-saver for those who need to write code to generate documents to match a template defined by others.

I see Eric White is carrying details of the release of the OpenXML Powertools on his blog today.

If you want to be able to generate OpenXML documents on the server, without an installation of Microsoft Office, then this is the way to do it.

You’ll find the details on Eric’s blog by following this link;

Processing Open XML documents server-side using PowerShell is a powerful approach for creating, modifying, and transforming Open XML documents. The PowerTools for Open XML are examples and guidance that show how to do this. They consist of PowerShell cmdlets, and a number of example scripts that demonstrate the use of the cmdlets. Examples include automated word processing document and spreadsheet generation, and preparing documents for distribution external to a company, including removing comments, accepting revisions, applying a uniform theme to them, and applying a watermark to them.

His blog links to a video that explains how to install and use PowerTools for OpenXML in conjunction with the release version of the OpenXML SDK.

The three scenarios covered in the linked video are;

• Developers who need to automatically generate documents programmatically. For example, developers may need to generate word processing documents from an XML file containing customer data.
• IT professionals who often need to send reports, charts, and spreadsheets that summarize the state of their network, servers, computers, and more.
• Information workers who need to prepare documents for publication outside of their company. To present a consistent appearance of documents, information workers may want to accept all revisions in the document, remove all comments, give a consistent style to the documents, digitally sign them, add a watermark, and more.

He also has a collection of other information that you will find helpful if you are looking for a way to generate or play with OpenXML documents on the server, or on a desktop without Microsoft Office installed.

Back in March of this year, Doug Mahugh talked about the roadmap for the OpenXML SDK, an important set of tools that will allow developers to quickly develop applications that read and right OpenXML (ECMA-376) documents.

This first version of the SDK, which is available as of today, includes a set of APIs capable of manipulating Open XML Formats at the part level. This version of the SDK is a fully supported release that developers can use to build and deploy shipping solutions.

Version 2 will contain all the necessary components of the Open XML API architecture and the first CTP will be available in late summer on the MSDN download site.

Hundreds of solutions have been created by developers worldwide building on the 2007 Microsoft Office system. There are currently nearly 150 partners who have developed Open XML solutions. You can see profiles of some of them in the MSDN Partner directory, including Captaris, Intergen and Xinnovation just to name a few.

Through the Open XML SDK’s sample code and how-to articles on the programming object model, developers will be able to decrease their development time for scenarios such as:

• Creating documents programmatically
• Customizing parts within documents
• Adding and inspecting custom XML within documents
• Working with and customizing document properties

You can download the OpenXML SDK v1.0 from here, you will find more reading material on the MSDN site here, or you can participate in the MSDN discussion forums for the SDK here.