OpenXML: First Steps
How do you start to learn something completely new like OpenXML.
As if new topics are not hard enough today Microsoft is between two releases (SDK 1.0 released against Office 2007 and SDK 2.0 due to be released against Office 2010). If you go to O’Reilly there seem to be no books on OpenXML although there are loads on XML and some blogs on the topic. Much of the Microsoft material, forums and blogs are around SDK 1.0 and indications are that the two versions are significantly different.
Some links that do seem to be of value include:
Blogs:
Brian Jones on MSDN
Eric White on MSDN
OpenXML 2.0 SDK:
SDK 2.0 on MSDN
SDK 1.0 Video Tutorials
Forum:
OpenXMLDeveloper
So I started with the video tutorials on SDK 1.0. There are a number of them. They are clear, concise and a great way to get my mind in gear. I listened made notes (mind-maps) and generally started thinking about my approach. I have only watched the first three so far but I think that has given me enough to try creating my first example.
There is very little information on OpenXML SDKs so I know that I am going to have to do a lot of ground-breaking but at least I now have a plan: Use VB to create a small suite of classes to manage the creation of documents and then utilise those classes within a Dimensions script.
