First Look Microsoft Office 2003

The far-reaching support of XML in Office 2003 is a major opportunity for solutions developers interested in developing schema as well as specific add on applications to help businesses take the best advantage of XML technology. Here are a few ways solutions developers can take advantage of the XML support built into Office 2003:

• Create powerful XML templates and solutions using Office 2003 tools (Smart documents, InfoPath templates, and smart tags).

• Design and offer customized schema and transforms for applications-specific tasks, such as creating corporate profile reports, news articles, resumes, personnel reviews, and more.

• Create solutions for content repurposing and Web publishing in a variety of forms.

• Design dynamic forms that gather information for businesses and save to a database with a single click.

• Develop tools for transferring information from legacy systems and forms into XML-supported systems.

• Design user helps and in document prompts (via smart tags) to facilitate data-entry and custom publishing options.

Frank Rice, of the MSDN Office Developer Center (msdn.microsoft.com/ office), says that the XML support in Office 2003 makes things much easier on developers. 'Development time (with XML) is very rapid compared to writing VBA code; extensible means you can change it or add to it. Let's say your client company comes and says, ‘We've added different fields, we've gotta do this, we're interested in this….' Instead of having to redo all the VBA code, you can say 'OK, we'll just redo this element, add this, pull this one over….' Twenty minutes later, you're done. Additionally, says Rice, XML solutions are easy to deploy. 'You just put templates up on a server. XML is all text; no proprietary format is used, so you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.'