Add-in, Built-in or Plug-in: Enhanced Interoperability with Microsoft Office

There are a variety of software programs and document formats in the market for organizations to exchange data among disparate systems. For example, to carry out their public service, communicate with citizens and operate efficiently, most government employees need to access, read and edit multiple types of documents. The ability to access any data— from document content to phone book information— in a form that easily permits its use in other software products can help streamline productivity, increase efficiencies and create economic benefits to a vast array of users.

Significant progress has been made in providing users greater choice in document interoperability with the adoption of multiple open standards and supporting translation tools. Now users have more choice in open-source developed and licensed document formatting and exchange tools with several new tools sponsored by Microsoft: Open XML Document Viewer and the Open XML/ODF Translator.

Plug-in with the Open XML Document Viewer

Users can now access Microsoft Office Word 2007 documents or Word Mac 2008 documents in HTML from any browser using the Open XML Document Viewer. The Open XML Document Viewer v1.0 translates Microsoft Office Word files to HTML format, enabling access to the information from any platform with a Web browser. Users simply download a free browser plug-in for their Firefox, Opera or Internet Explorer (IE) 7 or IE 8 browser. Once downloaded, viewing Open XML documents is quick and easy within any browser on Windows and Linux platforms without the need to install Microsoft Office. The download is available from the Microsoft Codeplex site. Microsoft provides online videos and additional information , including an easy step-by-step scenario using the Viewer.

At the core of the Viewer is the transformation engine. This engine performs the conversion by opening the .DOCX document, reading, mapping and transforming it to HTML. The transformation engine is exposed as a client side browser plug-in with support for Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer, and as a cross platform command line translator for use in server side applications.

The result is a translator that enables Open XML document (.DOCX) visibility within browser applications without the use of any of the usual office productivity or word processing applications, across multiple platforms and environments, as either a server side application or as a client side end user solution. Developers, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Solutions Integrators & Mobile Solution providers can use these tools to enable their customers to view Open XML documents on heterogeneous platforms and browser applications.

The Open XML Viewer comes with the following list of features: support for document themes; server side translation; and support for drawing shapes; plug-ins for Firefox 3.x and Opera 9.x on Windows and Linux; plug-ins for IE 7 and IE 8; and support for Math ML equations.

Choose to Innovate

While the Open XML Document Viewer gives users increased choice and convenience when accessing documents, it also gives independent software vendors (ISVs) more opportunities to create innovative document-based applications that work across operating systems and devices.

ISVs can use the Open XML Document Viewer to create innovative document management applications. One example is a content management application that automatically translates Office Word 2007 documents into HTML for universal Web-based access. Another example is an application that enables project teams to post large documents to a server, where they can be viewed from the Web and/or viewed by team members who do not have Microsoft Office installed on their computers. A third example could be a service that enables users to submit Office Word attachments and have them translated into an HTML page.

The Open XML Document Viewer comes with a demonstration application, of a job-posting Web site, that ISVs can use as an example of how they might create applications using the Open XML Document Viewer. The application takes job applicant resumes created with Office Word, translates them into HTML, and displays them on a browser for quick viewing.

Watch a video on Open XML Document Viewer

Collaboration Fosters Choice

The request for a translator (or viewer) from Open XML to HTML came at the first Document Interoperability Initiative(DII) event in 2008. DII is a global program of technical vendor discussions, labs and solution-enablement programs to increase interoperability between document format implementations across a range of formats, applications, platforms and devices. This initiative brings together key members of the community who are focused on identifying and addressing interoperability issues between different implementations of document formats.

The Open XML Document Viewer is available under the open source Microsoft Public License (MS-PL), which allows anyone to choose a tool, submit bugs and feedback or contribute to the project. Microsoft has chosen to support an open source development model that allows developers from around the world to participate and contribute to the project. The Open XML Document Viewer project site on Codeplex provides in depth technical information that third-party programs can use to better interact with Office applications.

“Microsoft is collaborating with the industry to solve customer interoperability challenges,” says Sumit Chawla, Technical Program Manager/Architect at Microsoft. “The Open XML Document Viewer project is an outcome of the feedback from participants of a series of Document Interoperability Initiative workshops hosted by Microsoft. We are listening to customer needs, and we are committed to openness and access.”

Bridging Document Format Interoperability: OXML/ODF Translator

Service Pack (SP) 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System that was released in April 2009 includes the ability to open, edit and save documents in version 1.1 of the Open Document Format. It allows users to open and save files that conform to ODF extensions (.odt, .ods, and .odp) natively from within Microsoft Office 2007.

The Open XML / ODF translator on SourceForge continues to be the solution for Office 2003 and Office XP users who wish to Open & Save ODF documents. The open source Translator project was started in July 2006, when Microsoft worked with partners (Clever Age, Dialogika & Sonata Software) to demonstrate pragmatic interoperability between Microsoft Office and Open Office documents. Today, after multiple releases of the project with more than 2.5 millions downloads, the translator is a mature project and version 3.0 was released in March 2009.

More Choice, More Convenience

“As an open source project, the Translator is a great foundation for engineering work around document interoperability. ISVs can use the code as the basis for additional translators and programs and create a wide range of interoperability solutions that bridge Open XML and ODF,” says Vijay Rajagopalan, principal architect at Microsoft.

The translator adds new menu items within the supported Office programs to enable users to create new ODF-compatible documents, open ODF files, and save documents as an ODF file. Version 3.0 focuses on improving the overall fidelity of the translation between Open XML and ODF as well as the performance. The previous version (2.5) of the Translator introduced ODF compatible “templates” intended to provide greater visual fidelity during the translation process. The translator can also be run on the server side for certain scenarios.

A command-line utility allows batch conversions. The command line translator provides for translation facilities for all three document types – text documents, spreadsheets and presentation – via one single executable. In addition to the existing features, the command line tool can now convert document templates. This utility provides a very efficient method for converting multiple documents automatically instead of the time-consuming process of opening each document and saving it in a different format.

The converter is based on XSL transformations between two XML formats, along with some pre- and post-processing to manage the packaging (zip/unzip), schema incompatibilities and the integration into Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. An Open Source development model was utilized to allow developers from all around the world to participate and contribute to the project. And since the translator is open-source, it can be easily licensed.

The Translator is designed to be interoperable with various desktop suites, and can be used with Novell OpenOffice to add read, edit and write support for Open XML documents. The Translator has enabled interoperability on multiple OpenOffice editions, including Novell’s edition on SUSE Linux and Ubuntu’s redistribution.

“The Translator is a great source of inspiration for engineering work around document interoperability,” continues Rajagopalan. “Novell has incorporated the Translator into its implementation of OpenOffice running under SUSE Linux. Others in the community have taken the translator and integrated it into the Ubuntu Linux OpenOffice version. It’s a foundational utility that meets a critical market need and also opens up new solution opportunities for ISVs. Because the Open XML/ODF Translator is open source, ISVs can use the code as the basis for additional translators and programs and create a wide range of interoperability solutions that bridge Open XML and ODF.”