Special Edition Using® Microsoft® Office Word 2003

XML Support

Finally, Microsoft has added extensive support for XML throughout Microsoft Office Professional and the standalone version of Microsoft Word. Word's XML support has received extensive publicity and is covered in detail in Chapter 25, “Using Word to Develop XML Content and Use XML Applications.” This section briefly summarizes what XML is, and what Word's support can (and cannot) do for you.

XML is a widely accepted standard for representing any form of structured data—from text to database entries, and far beyond. Like HTML, XML is a markup language—you attach “tags” to data, and the tags indicate how the data should be handled. Like HTML files, XML files are composed of text; they are not binary files like conventional Word documents. ...