Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office Released – Automate Office documents without Office - Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

Erika Ehrli - Open XML SDK 2.0 RTM is live! Find Articles, Videos, Code Samples, and Resources on MSDN

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What is the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office?

The Open XML Format SDK 2.0 is a superset of the Open XML SDK 1.0. In addition to the functionality provided by the Open XML SDK 1.0, it leverages.NET Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) and provides classes to construct and query the contents of parts within a package. You can use functional construction for composing documents, and LINQ queries for extracting information from documents.

The SDK is a collection of classes that let developers create and manipulate Open XML documents – documents that adhere to the Office Open XML File Formats Standard. Because the SDK provides an application program interface that lets developers manipulate Open XML documents directly, they can do so without the need for the Office client products themselves in both client and server operating environments.

Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office offers a number of tools and resources to improve programmatic document processing thus making a task of the developer more efficient. The SDK also carries an interoperability improvements for open XML implementers as well as it is designed to let Open XML developers build high performance client-side or server-side solutions that handle complex operations using only a small amount of program code.

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OpenXML.org - Introducing the Open XML SDK 2.0

“To celebrate the RTM release of the Open XML SDK 2.0 we’re launching a bunch of new content here at Open XML Developer. This article provides our brief history of the Open XML SDK 2.0 and provides useful links to content here at Open XML Developer.

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In this article we will look briefly at the various approaches for working with Office documents and their pros and cons. We will then dive deep into the Open XML SDK 2.0 and see key features designed to help developers be more productive in working with these open, interoperable standards.

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OpenXML.org - Open XML Developer Workshop updated with Open XML SDK 2.0 content and new Hands-on-Lab

“During the first half of 2007, trainers from Microsoft, Sonata, InfoSupport, Allette, Predeek Consulting and others delivered Open XML developer workshops in over 30 countries. These workshops were all structured around a set of inter-related presentations and hands-on labs that cover typical Open XML development scenarios.

Those presentations and hands-on labs (as well as all supporting content, such as demo files) are now available for free download from OpenXMLDeveloper.org at the links below.

These files have been updated for the Open XML SDK 2.0.

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Microsoft Downloads - Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office

“This download provides strongly typed part and content classes for use with Open XML documents.

Version: Mar10

Date Published: 3/12/2010

Language: English

Download Size: 3.8 MB - 110.2 MB*

Open XML is an open ECMA 376 standard and is also approved as the ISO/IEC 29500 standard that defines a set of XML schemas for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations, and word processing documents. Microsoft Office Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 all use Open XML as the default file format.

The Open XML file formats are useful for developers because they use an open standard and are based on well-known technologies: ZIP and XML.

The Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office is built on top of the System.IO.Packaging API and provides strongly typed part classes to manipulate Open XML documents. The SDK also uses the .NET Framework Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) technology to provide strongly typed object access to the XML content inside the parts of Open XML documents.

The Open XML SDK 2.0 simplifies the task of manipulating Open XML packages and the underlying Open XML schema elements within a package. The Open XML Application Programming Interface (API) encapsulates many common tasks that developers perform on Open XML packages, so you can perform complex operations with just a few lines of code.

The tools package contains the Open XML SDK v2.0 Productivity Tool for Office and the documentation for the Open XML SDK v2. The Open XML SDK 2.0 Productivity Tool for Microsoft Office provides a number of features designed to improve your productivity and accelerate your learning while working with the SDK and Open XML files. Features include the ability to generate Open XML SDK 2.0 source code based on document content, compare source and target Open XML documents to reveal differences and to generate source code to create the target from the source, validate documents, and display documentation for the Open XML SDK v2.0, the ECMA376v1 standard, and the Microsoft Office implementation notes.

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Who (in business/enterprise) doesn’t want to create, product, automate or consume Office documents without having Office installed?

I’ve used the OpenXML SDK v1 on a project and found it a little harder than I expected. It just took me a bit to mesh my old knowledge of the Office Object Model and API with OpenXML.

This version of the SDK seems nice step forward it making OpenXML easier to learn, use and consume.

Where to go to scratch your OpenXML dev info itch…
"Open XML Explained" Free eBook (PDF)

Open XML SDK v1 Released

OpenXML Viewer 1.0 Released – Open source DocX to HTML conversion, with IE, Firefox and Opera (and/or command line) support
Powering into OpenXML with PowerShell