SourceForge project: Office Binary (doc, xls, ppt) Translator to Open XML Project

[Grant Hogarth]

SourceForge: Office Binary (doc, xls, ppt) Translator to Open XML
Project
Brian Jones, Blog

"As promised last month, the binary documentation (.doc, .xls, .ppt) is
now live. In addition to this, the project to create an open source
translator (binary to Open XML) has now been formed on SourceForge, and
the development roadmap has been published. While the project is still
in its infancy, you can see what the planned project roadmap is, as well
as an early draft of a mapping table between the Word binary format
(.doc) and the Open XML format (.docx). The binary documentation itself
is also available; it's all covered under the Open Specification
Promise. Another great surprise in all of this is that we've made the
documentation for a few other supporting technologies available as it
may be of use to folks implementing the binary formats: (1) Windows
Compound Binary File Format Specification; (2) Windows Metafile Format
(.wmf) Specification; (3) Ink Serialized Format (ISF) Specification..." 


>From the Overview: "The main goal of the Office Binary (doc, xls, ppt)
Translator to Open XML project is to create software tools, plus
guidance, showing how a document written using the Binary Formats (doc,
xls, ppt) can be translated into the Office Open XML format. As a result
customers can use these tools to migrate from the binary formats to
Office Open XML Format thus enabling them to more easily access their
existing content in the new world of XML. The Translator will be
available under the open source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD)
license, which allows that anyone can use the mapping, submit bugs and
feedback, or contribute to the project. On February 15th 2008, Microsoft
has made it even easier to get access to the binary formats
documentation from [the Microsoft Office Binary File Formats web site],
and the binary formats have also been made available under the Microsoft
Open Specification Promise. The Office Open XML file format has been
approved as an Ecma standard and is available [online]. We have chosen
to use an Open Source development model that allows developers from all
around the world to participate and contribute to the project."

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2008/02/15/binary-documentatio
n-doc-xls-ppt-and-translator-project-site-are-now-live.aspx
<http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2008/02/15/binary-documentati
on-doc-xls-ppt-and-translator-project-site-are-now-live.aspx> 
See also the SourceForge Project: http://b2xtranslator.sourceforge.net/
<http://b2xtranslator.sourceforge.net/> 



SOURCE: 
XML Daily Newslink. Friday, 15 February 2008
A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
<http://xml.coverpages.org/> 
Provided by OASIS http://www.oasis-open.org <http://www.oasis-open.org> 
Edited by Robin Cover

 

Grant Hogarth
Senior Technical Writer
Equis International - A Reuters Company

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