Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (2008)

Re:Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated?... by thristian on Saturday September 10, 2016 @10:34PM (#12471783)

My understanding is that the .docx format is basically just the .doc format, transcribed to XML, and with a .zip filesystem instead of an OLE Compound Document filesystem. In fact, I recall some Office-competitor developers saying they preferred .doc, because (like Joel says) they could just read it into RAM and use it, instead of having to deserialize XML.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated?... by davidgerard on Sunday September 11, 2016 @05:30AM (#12472627)

In practice there are assorted binary or encoded lumps.

More fun: you know what happens if you save a .DOC in Office 2007/2010/2013? Any features past 2003 are saved as a lump of OOXML! http://vmiklos.hu/blog/doctok.html#comment-header

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated?... by 13of40 on Saturday September 10, 2016 @10:47PM (#12471807)

There are some parts of it, like VB macros, that are still stored in the old format before being put in the zip file.

[ Parent | on HN ]