Essentials of the Open Packaging Conventions (OPC), and other Open XML Links
I’ve written an MSDN article, Essentials of the Open Packaging Conventions, published today. This article presents the basics that you need to know about Open Packaging Conventions if you are building applications using the Open XML SDK or System.IO.Packaging. The Open Packaging Conventions (OPC) is the part of the Open XML standard that defines how XML files are stored in the Zip file, and how those XML files are related to each other. It’s easy to get started building Open XML applications without knowing too much about OPC, but before too long, you’ll want to have a good working knowledge of some essential aspects of it. In particular, you’ll want to understand how parts in a package form a directed graph, not a hierarchy. You’ll also want to understand content types, relationship types, relationship IDs, and how they are related. I’ve also seen folks misuse the URIs of the parts in the package – this article tells you how to avoid that trap. Thanks to Jack Davis for tech-reviewing, and to Kelly Bowen-McCombs for editing.
This blog is inactive.
New blog: EricWhite.com/blog
Release of the August 2009 CTP of the Open XML SDK 2.0
Zeyad Rajabi announced the release of the August 2009 CTP of the Open XML SDK 2.0. The big feature in this release is additional semantic validation. This is very valuable when writing code to generate or modify Open XML documents – you can make sure that you’ve generated valid Open XML documents.
Visual Studio 2008 Code Snippets for the Open XML SDK 2.0
We’ve published 50+ Open XML Format SDK 2.0 Code Snippets for Visual Studio 2008. Erika Ehrli has posted a complete list of these snippets. These code snippets can give you a big head-start on your development.
Seven New Visual How-to Articles on Open XML
We’ve published seven new Visual How-to articles on Open XML, written by Joel Krist of iSoftStone. I was on the tech-review team for most of these – these are great. The code is clean, and the writing is good. They show how to accomplish some key scenarios with Open XML. The accompanying videos are helpful too.
Using the Open XML SDK 2.0 Classes Versus Using .Net XML Services
Merging PowerPoint 2007 Decks Together by Using the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office
Embedding Documents in Word 2007 by Using the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office
Adding Images to Documents in Word 2007 by Using the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office