The Office suite is packaged and distributed in multiple editions and the XML support varies among them: -
Native XML file formats for Word and Excel are available in all editions. -
Custom schema support is only available in the Professional and Professional Enterprise editions. -
The new InfoPath product is only available in the Professional Enterprise edition and as an individual purchase. Almost all of the Office material in this book involves custom schemas. The general XML material, of course, is not product-specific. When the book talks about "the Office products" without further qualification, it means those with XML support: Word, Excel, InfoPath, Access, and FrontPage. Although Visio also has XML support, it is sufficiently different from the other products that we don't cover it in the book. Its XML capabilities can be summarized as follows: -
It has its own XML data representation, called VDX. -
It can import SVG drawings as shapes and export complete diagrams in SVG.[1] [1] SVG is an XML-based graphics notation. -
It is possible to attach XML data in any schema to objects in a Visio diagram. These things are mentioned here to avoid cluttering the book with disclaimers like "if you have the Professional edition you can also do this" and "all of the products (except Visio and non-XML-enabled products) can do that". |