Microsoft Releases Pre-2007 Binary File Format Specs

[w1z4rd]

"Microsoft has released the specifications for the binary file formats used by pre-2007 Microsoft Office applications. They're accurate this time! Honest! While the documents are enormous (Word alone requires 533 pages; Excel runs over 1000 plus another 850 pages for the Office 2007 binary format), they hopefully will be useful to developers trying to create or extract information from Microsoft Office files (which despite their flaws, have been the de facto standard in many fields for some time now)."

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/30/1942211

 

[Moederloos]

Typical bloatware - over 1000 pages to explain a format.

 

[milomak]

Would that mean that apps like OOo should be able now to be developed to run pre-2007 macros in Excel files?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

I don't trust M$ - at all.

 

[The_Techie]

I don't trust M$ - at all.

Same here, I'm slowly trying to convert my house to Ubuntu

 

[hawker]

^I am slowly doing that! - Converting everything to Ubuntu. At least OO3 is coming soon, I have the beta and so far its awesome!

 

[Turiko]

Typical bloatware - over 1000 pages to explain a format.

Bloatware in terms of code maybe, but in terms of explaining something, it is what I like to call obfuscation.

In previous job the R&D dept consisted of university grads who liked to be like Microsoft employees, they also generated reams of paper to explain simple concepts.

Thank you for this post. I will be downloading these tonight