Microsoft Office 2007 File Formats for Data Exchange

Microsoft’s Office 2007 (Office 12) product suite is due out at the end of 2006 and will introduce many changes in MS Office suite file formats. 

The classic Microsoft Word pre-2003 file format has become a frequently used file exchange format for many business documents.  With Office 2007 familiar file formats like .doc, .xls and .ppt will go away.  Document extensions will now be four characters.  For example, default Word documents will now end in .docx.  But that is only the beginning.

Internally there will be a new file format used by Office called Open XML.  This is an extension of the format Microsoft first introduced in the Office 2003 product.  Open XML will be the default format used when creating and saving Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations.

The benefits of the new Open XML format are that the saved files will be much smaller because the format is compressed.  Microsoft estimates the file sizes to be 50-75% smaller.  The previous Office formats were not compressed (although they were mostly not very human readable).  Microsoft also claims that the XML-based architecture used for the format will make data recovery of information easier, should files become damaged or corrupted.  They also claim that the new format will enable better data integration when using this format with Microsoft back-end services.

The older .doc, .xls and .ppt file formats will still be readable, and users can explicitly choose to save files in the older more universally exchangeable file formats.  It will be possible to change the Office settings from the default to always save the older formats.  But the default settings are likely to cause a lot of problems early on when people try to exchange files with others who have not yet upgraded.

To ease part of the pain in migrating to the new formats, Microsoft is also offering patch software for users of Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 that will automatically convert and recognize files saved in the new format from these older versions of the Office suite.

In addition to Open XML, Microsoft has also announced that they will allow files to be saved in the ODF file format.  Open Document Format (ODF) is a file format which IBM , Sun Microsystems, Novell, OpenOffice.org, and 30 other organizations have participated in creating.  Here is the specification of the Open Office XML Document Interchange standard. 

Microsoft has argued that their Open XML is superior to ODF because it is more compact and better performing.  Microsoft enlisted companies like Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, Intel, the British Library, and Toshiba to ratify Open XML as a standard within the European Computer Manufacturers’ Association (ECMA) — somewhat ironic given that Microsoft took the standardization route through a European body given the problems that they’re been having in the EU.

After being pressured, Microsoft launched the ODF-Open XML compatibility project called Open XML Translator Project and later announced that they would allow documents to also be saved in the ODF format from within Office.

Office 2007 will also have the option to ‘Save As’ to PDF file format.  This is a key feature and reason why many people purchase the Adobe Acrobat product .  It’s no wonder that Adobe complained at Microsoft’s announcement of this feature for Office.  Microsoft eventually backed down and will make the Save As PDF feature a free download rather than a bundled feature.

To muddy the waters even more, Microsoft is introducing yet another file format called XPS.  XPS is Microsoft’s response to the PDF file format.  XPS stands for XML Page Specification.  Like PDF, XPS supports features like editable metadata, annotations, digital signatures, hyperlinks and bookmarks.  Free XPS viewers will be available for Windows, MacIntosh, Unix and Linux systems.  XPS does not yet support any kind of scripting.  PDF has become the default standard in many segments like law, insurance, and government — it may be too late for XPS to make a challenge there, but it will be interesting to see how XPS and PDF will compete.

So which is it?  Will you decide to save your document as Classic Word, Open XML Word, XPS or PDF?  Given the number of file format choices, it’s likely that there will be some confusion by users early on with the introduction of Office 2007, especially with Open XML being the default.

A free Beta version of the Office 2007 product can be downloaded here or can be tested with a no-install on-line version here.
Formtek is a member of the Microsoft Partner program.