Developer workshop content

If you've attended one of the Open XML Developer workshops that I and others have delivered in the last few months, you probably received a bunch of presentations, hands-on labs with complete source code, lab manuals, and demo files. We passed out that content as takeaway items for all the attendees, but now, even if you didn't attend one of those workshops, you can get a copy of all the workshop content by simply downloading it from the "Open XML Developer Workshop content" page on OpenXMLDeveloper.org.

The content includes several things:

• A series of presentations covering everything from basic Open XML architecture to the details of WordprocessingML, SpreadsheetML, and PresentationML. These presentations include hundreds of slides that will help you understand the things most developers need to know in order to work effectively with Open XML.
• Dozens of sample documents and XML fragments that demonstrate specific concepts. These are the files that were used for demos during the workshops.
• A set of hands-on labs in C# that take you through the basics of creating various document types. These labs use some AdventureWorks sample XML data as a starting point, which is transformed into rich Open XML documents that take advantage of images, styling, hyperlinks, charts, pivot tables, animations, and other common document elements.  (See below for two samples of output from the labs.)
• A set of Java hands-on labs that demonstrate many of the same concepts for Java developers.

Many people were involved in putting this material together. Some let me beg/borrow/steal their work, some contributed hands-on labs or sample documents, some created slides, some helped with fact-checking, some provided feedback after delivering the content themselves, and others were kind enough to bluntly say things like "that slide doesn't work." At the risk of forgetting someone, I'd like to thank (in alphabetical order): Brian Jones, Chris Predeek, Kevin Boske, Mauricio Ordonez, Peter Koen, Rick Jelliffe, Sanjay Kumar, Tristan Davis, and Wouter Van Vugt. Most of the useful information came from those guys, and any errors and omissions I handled entirely on my own.

If you're new to Open XML development, or just curious about how Open XML works, these presentations and labs will get you a well-rounded education in what's involved. Now if only we had a book or a set of videos that complemented all this content. :-) Stay tuned ...