Open XML in Japan

Open XML Book. Yoko Girier of Toshiba has written a book that provides an overview of the Open XML formats in Japanese. As a member of Ecma TC45, the technical committee that created the Ecma 376 specification, Yoko offers a well-informed view of the details of Open XML. In this book her goal was to provide an overview for users and an introduction to the formats for developers. The book includes a sample of how to work with WordprocessingML and custom XML markup in Java, including a conversion from Open XML to XHTML. She has also provided an insider’s guide to how to read the Ecma 376 spec. It’s only available in Japanese currently, and you can order the book from Amazon Japan.

Skyfish's JukeDoX. Accessibility is a hot topic in document formats these days, and I'm expecting to see some cool things come out of the Daisy translator project in the months ahead. A Japanese software firm, Skyfish, offers another piece of the accessibility puzzle: their JukeDoX product can read a DOCX out loud. See the case study on Microsoft.com for some information about the thinking behind JukeDoX's development. And for general information about Open XML's accessibility support, see the accessibility whitepaper on the OpenXMLDeveloper site.

Wipse forms Open XML technical working group. Wipse, the Windows platform and services community organization in Japan, in collaboration with Microsoft Innovation Center Japan, has formed an Open XML technical working group. Monolingual English readers (like myself) can learn about Wipse on their English page.

For more information about Open XML in Japan, see the Office Open XML Formats page on Microsoft Japan's interop site.