Imagine Think Create Share : Office System

PowerPoint Productivity to the Max

carloshm — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:51:00 GMT

Hi,

In the Web Office Wave, we need a new evolution in the way people share their ideas; improving how we use the technology we have, in our daily world.

Thinking of PowerPoint, did you have last week any meeting trying to deliver your ideas to other people?, I would be happy to find deep use of current tools in the productivity landscape in order to maximize that time.

Although you should visit OfficeLabs.com I wanted to point out some of these tools to improve the way we communicate with each other:

pptPlex http://www.officelabs.com/Lists/Categories/Category.aspx?Name=pptPlex

PicLens for PowerPoint http://blog.cooliris.com/2008/08/07/slide-into-piclens-for-your-next-presentation/

It would be nice to describe the tools, but it would be better to see them in action:

Namaste!

P.S.

You can review http://www.pptools.com/index.html too

Rich Text Content Control and Custom XML Part

carloshm — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 00:44:00 GMT

Hi,

Maybe you have used the Word 2007 Content Control Toolkit, and after mapping a Rich Text Content Control with a XML node, you have noticed that it turns into a plain text content control.

This is something that Word 2007 Content Control Toolkit manages, as it is not expected behaviour of the current implemented version of content controls.

You can check at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb226172.aspx that the expected action would be a run-time error.

The same way when you map a XML node to a picture content control, it stores the base-64 binary representation; it would be great to include the rich text representation (Ecma 376) of the text.

Cheers!

Office 2007 ODF - UOF Support

carloshm — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:40:00 GMT

Hi,

Maybe you have read about projects for supporting UOF. Similar approach to the ODF support.

You can check them at:

What I wasn't aware of, is the study to merge both formats. I can extract some text from the article:

One reason has to do with the formats' allocation of their respective namespaces. The Lab described the UOF schema as being much more structured, replete, and flexible, while certain parts of the ODF schema seem more arbitrary.

This seems a real example of a possible future evolution of the current ODF format, sort of anounce at Brian Jones blog. The conclusion was a conversor http://odf-to-uof.sourceforge.net/overview.html

Cheers!

P.S.

You can check the announcement at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-20UOFODFPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

Server Document Generation

carloshm — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:33:00 GMT

Hi,

One of my favorites projects are those related to document generation. With Office 2007, we can open ECMA-376 / Open XML documents (.docx, .xlsx, etc..).

There are several tools to manage OpenXML files (Office 2007) that I want you to be aware:

General

Custom UI Editor Tool, related to Office Fluent UI Customizations.
Open XML Package Explorer, you can imagine it gives to the possibility to navigate through the Open Packaging Format.

Docx

Word 2007 Content Control Toolkit , allows you to mapped and create Custom XML and Content Controls

Xlsx

ExcelPackage: Office Open XML Format file creation, generation of Excel 2007 spreadsheets.

Starting again

carloshm — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 21:16:00 GMT

Hi,

Let's try to write about what I read, see or think. First, I work at IW MCS Team at Spain, so I'll write about Office development and RS, although I love many other stuff.

I was searching time ago apps/tools in order to manage Word documents at the server, as you perhaps know Microsoft Office were not intended to be use at the server (more later on this). But I have been in several projects were this was a requirement. So which alternatives we have?

Searching through several solutions you can find:

and solutions around WordML with CambridgeDocs or the transformation with RenderX at MSDN

And usually customer start her own solution. In this path VSTO, is really improving in the next release (November), so you should take a closer look in new Server-Side functionality, as the ServerDocument Class.

The Office XML Formats for Codenamed Office "12" will be important too, so check Brian Jones blog

It would be great if you give us your opinion about those products, if you have tested them. Or solutions you have made and problems you have faced.

About Office on the server, you may have read about our future new services as Excel Services or Forms Server so I think we are going to have a new interested year :)

P.S.

IW, MCS, RS, MSDN, VSTO