Microsoft's stated goal for Office 2003 is to make XML an "open standards" alternative to proprietary Microsoft file formats. For example, Access can import structured XML documents such as resumes, employee performance review, or expense reports prepared in Word 2003 to relational data stored in a Jet or SQL Server database. The key to the document import process is a consistent document structure that's defined by a schema. (The next section defines XML schemas). Access interprets the schema to determine the tables and fields in which to store the data contained in the document's elements. The same schema supports exporting the documents back to Word.
This chapter begins with definitions of important XML terms and then covers the use of XML documents exported by Access to generate HTML documents for deployment on intranets and the Internet. Sections at the end of the chapter describe exporting and importing XML data documents, generating and using XML schemas, and transforming XML data with custom XSLT files. Tip If you're only interested in the end result and want to defer learning the underpinnings of Access 2003's XML features, skip to the "Exporting Static Reports as XML" section. |