Office Open XML (OOXML) is an XML format created by Microsoft to replace binary document formats. It allows multiple applications to work with open documents and is standardized by ISO. OOXML can store individual pieces of a document separately and reduce file corruption. OpenOffice.org 3.0 can open OOXML files but cannot save them.
Office Open XML (OOXML), sometimes called Open XML, is an XML format created by Microsoft as a successor to the binary document formats used through Microsoft Office® version 2003, including .doc, .xls, .ppt. The OOXML format will allow multiple applications to work with open documents.
XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language, which refers to a simple text format. Extensible simply means that it allows designers to customize tags within the language. One of the goals of this language is to help share structured data between multiple people.
An OOXML file contains a collection of XML files compressed into a single file, which can be created and edited with Microsoft Office®. Files created in Office 2007 are not owned by Microsoft Office® as the OOXML format was standardized by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in April 2008. This version of the format is the latest, the original specification has been standardized in December 2006 by Ecma International, a private non-profit standardization group.
Bringing OOXML to Microsoft Office 2007® is one of the ways Microsoft is becoming more open and less reliant on closed proprietary software. Open formats like XML and OOXML allow more applications from other vendors to interact with documents more easily. This will ultimately reduce the amount of file corruption that can occur when files are swapped. The format is new in the 2007 Office release, but as Microsoft expands its software install base, the format will grow in popularity.
Being an XML-based format, OOXML can allow you to store individual pieces of a word document or power point presentation separately. These parts are compressed using a subset of the ZIP compression scheme to create the file type when Office documents are saved. When a user opens an OOXML file, the application handles the compressed collection of files but displays them as a single file. In the long run, it’s conceivable that some third-party applications could access the parts of the compressed OOXML file they need and ignore the rest.
The new format created by Microsoft is not entirely related to OpenOffice.org XML which is a deprecated version of this format. The latest version of OpenOffice.org, version 3.0, can open OOXML files created by MS Office 2007, but currently cannot save documents in that format. As the format grows, the free OpenOffice will likely be able to write in the standard Microsoft Office 2007 OOXML format, allowing for editing of documents by users of both application suites.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
