New Office File Format Conversions: A Heads-Up

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

All:

We're going to get a lot of questions about the new Office File Formats
coming down the pike, so let's get the ball rolling.

* Microsoft Office is changing to new file formats in the next release.

* The new formats are nothing like the old formats. Not even "related".

* Yes, this is a very good idea. They held off as long as they could to
avoid disruption, but it's a move that has been long overdue.

* Word, Excel and PowerPoint will move first, in Office 2007/Mac Office 12,
the coming iteration. Everything else will change over next time.

The old formats are NOT text, they are binary structures in which
"containers" of data of each type are linked by binary pointers that
indicate the off-set of each container from the end of the file.

The new formats are Open (published) compressed XML, very similar to HTML.
Each document is a mini-web site, compressed with the standard Zip
compression algorithm. It may contain binary objects for things such as
graphics, but usually it won't.

Just a tip for young players: when Word changes file formats then don't
up-convert HEAVILY customised templates, re-make them.

While up-conversion works fine for documents, templates have a more complex
file structure and may have more complex widgets in them. Whenever you
convert from one file format to another, you may be asking the converter to
re-express relational binary objects (List Templates and Style Tables come
to mind).

If you are, what you get depends upon whether the new file format has a
direct equivalent of the object. In a document, you can usually take it as
read that up-conversion will be totally safe. In a template, not
necessarily so: you need to test it.

DOWN conversion, on the other hand, is another name for suicide. If you
convert a document UP, keep the old one if you need the old format. If you
need the old version of the application to read the new content, you can
save back, but you may lose data doing so, so keep the new version.

Don't even THINK about round-tripping between file formats. You WILL lose
data, and almost certainly gain corruption.

In the forthcoming conversion, up-conversion from .doc to .docx is
guaranteed to work. Up conversion from .html to .docx will work.

Up conversion from .dot to .doct is probably OK. You'll get a file that
should work without problems.

Up-conversion from .dot to .docm, or down-conversion from .docm to .doc
simply won't work. According to my reading of what is supposed to happen, I
suspect the application will actually disallow it.

You have been warned

Cheers
--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Elliott Roper]

All:

We're going to get a lot of questions about the new Office File Formats
coming down the pike, so let's get the ball rolling.

You have been warned

Did anyone else get a mental picture of McGhie in long flowing beard,
sandals, and carrying a sign on which is written:-

"THE END OF THE WORD IS NIGH
Prepare to meet thy paragraph mark!!"

seriously, thanks John.

I do hope Mac Word is not too far behind the other one. It will cause a
lot of round-tripping if not.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Elliott:

Giggle There were two messages in that post, and you received and
understood both of them

My strong conviction is that Mac Word will NOT be very far behind PC Word
this time. They're working damned hard to make sure that it isn't

However, one of the first things that is going to be delivered is the
"Converter" that will enable versions back to Word X read the Office XML
formats.

Given that this has little in the way of a user interface, and little
reliance on the underlying OS, it will hopefully be a lot less work than
getting the Office 2007 applications themselves ported.

Unusually, this time, the "Converter" will enable the older applications to
both read AND write the new file formats. A lot of the technology will
already exist (the format is very similar to HTML). So that should be out
on time even if the rest of it runs a bit late.

But the intent of my post was to give the corporate types and solution
developers out there a good firm nudge in the correct direction, rather than
have them wait a year or so, then discover their plans and products have all
been invalidated by the changes.

I was also hoping to begin a campaign for "Be Nice to Microsoft Macintosh
Business Unit Week", because these poor sods are taking on a task of
seriously epic proportions this time around. They have to change platforms,
operating systems, processors, compilers, and file formats -- all in one
go!!

Microsoft Office is truly a vast lump of code. I hope we will cut these
people a bit of slack this version: they're nice people and they really are
working very hard to ensure that Microsoft stays on the Mac. We're in a
position to help them, and I am hoping that we all will do that.

We can always resume hostilities after they get this one out the door

Cheers

All:

We're going to get a lot of questions about the new Office File Formats
coming down the pike, so let's get the ball rolling.

You have been warned

Did anyone else get a mental picture of McGhie in long flowing beard,
sandals, and carrying a sign on which is written:-

"THE END OF THE WORD IS NIGH
Prepare to meet thy paragraph mark!!"

seriously, thanks John.

I do hope Mac Word is not too far behind the other one. It will cause a
lot of round-tripping if not.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410