New XML File Formats for Office 12

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As a number of bloggers have already picked up, yesterday we made a significant announcement about Office 12.  Word, Excel and PowerPoint will get new default file formats based on XML.  The extensions will change from .DOC, .XLS, .PPT to .DOCX, .XLSX, .PPTX.

The new file format is actually enclosed in a ZIP file. Change the extension name to .ZIP and you'll be able to double-click and get access to all the pieces of the new format.  There will be updates for previous versions of Office to enable this file format to be used with those apps too.

For more info there is a video interview with Brian Jones on Channel9, Brian is blogging now, and there are a couple of White Papers on MSDN giving some technical details.

https://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=73329
https://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/default.aspx
https://download.microsoft.com/download/c/2/9/c2935f83-1a10-4e4a-a137-c1db829637f5/Office12FileFormatDevPreviewWP.doc
https://download.microsoft.com/download/c/2/9/c2935f83-1a10-4e4a-a137-c1db829637f5/Office12NewFileFormatsWP.doc

And finally if you can get along to Tech Ed Europe in Amsterdam this July, you will be able to hear our very own 'Adventure Girl' Jessica Gruber present on this very topic.  That's worth the admission price alone. ;)