Final Draft of TC45's Office Open XML formats Standard Available

This is a mirror site set to reflect the content on Ecma International's website for TC45: http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/TC45-2006-50_final_draft.htm.

The Ecma International Technical Committee TC45 has been working to establish a standard for Office Open XML File Formats as described in its program of work at http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/TC45.htm. The committee's work began in December 2005, and has continued via weekly 2-hour conference calls and regular face-to-face meetings.

At the most recent face-to-face meeting this September in Trondheim, the committee created the Final Draft of the Office Open XML v1.0 format. The committee, with representation from all Ecma member organizations actively participating in TC45 (Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba, and the United States Library of Congress) unanimously approved the Final Draft standard (as described in the status report: http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/TC45-2006-50_06Sept28.htm) and agreed to propose it to the General Assembly of Ecma International for publication as an Ecma standard. The final draft has now been submitted it to the Ecma Secretary General (October 6th, 2006) and the GA will vote on this proposal during the GA meeting December 7-8, 2006.

In keeping with TC45's desire to maintain as much public disclosure around the process as possible, the TC45 members have agreed to provide the final drafts of the reference schema and specification for public consumption. There is also a technical forum at http://www.openxmldeveloper.org for developers who are interested in using the Ecma Office Open XML file formats.

The following organizations have participated in the work of Ecma TC45 and their contributions are gratefully acknowledged:

Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba, and the United States Library of Congress

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Final Draft:

The Final Draft of the Office Open XML v1.0 format is available in 5 separate parts (in the PDF format) as well as 6 accompanying electronic annexes as listed below:

Part 1 - Fundamentals

Part 2 - Open Packaging Conventions

Part 3 - Primer

Part 4 - Markup Language Reference

Part 5 - Markup Compatibility and Extensibility

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Alternative Representations of Final Draft

The committee has also made the Standard available in two alternative formats for informational purposes:

Tagged PDF (uses document structure tags for better accessibility)

Part 1 - Fundamentals

Part 2 - Open Packaging Conventions

Part 3 - Primer

Part 4 - Markup Language Reference

Part 5 - Markup Compatibility and Extensibility

WordprocessingML format

Part 1 - Fundamentals

Part 2 - Open Packaging Conventions

Part 3 - Primer

Part 4 - Markup Language Reference

Part 5 - Markup Compatibility and Extensibility

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