Excerpts from the Introduction:

Amongst the many new technologies implemented in the Microsoft Office 2007 platform there is one that you cannot miss. The new Open XML markup languages for documents, spreadsheets and presentations are here to alleviate difficulties experienced with document development and retention using older binary techniques. Open XML provides an open and standardized environment which builds on many existing standards such as XML, ZIP and Xml-Schema. Since the use of these techniques has found its way to almost every platform in use nowadays, the document is no longer a black-box containing formatted data. Instead, the document has become the data! It is easy to integrate in your business processes. Open XML provides several new technologies to allow the business data inside the document to be represented outside of the main document body, enabling easy access to the important areas of a document and allowing great document reuse. The purpose of this book is to provide you with the building blocks required to build your own document-centric solution. In this book you will discover the basics of WordprocessingML, SpreadsheetML and PresentationML as well as the DrawingML supporting language. Learn about the use of custom markup to enable custom solutions using WordprocessingML, the formulas of SpreadsheetML or the great visual effects that can be applied using DrawingML.

Intended Audience:

In this book you will be provided a detailed overview of the three major markup languages in Open XML. This book is written for those who have a basic understanding of XML or HTML. If you are a software architect or developer who needs to build document-centric solutions you can learn about how to build your value-added solutions based on the Open XML platform. Those new to document markup languages as well as those more experienced in document markup but new to Open XML will benefit from this book.