Hi, everyone! Well, summer is over and that means it's back to it for me and new online content (and hopefully posting more than every few weeks ;-) I have a couple of webcasts coming up in October that I'm excited to tell you about - and will be posting soon with links to new book excerpts, training courses, templates, and articles as well...
First of all - those webcast links ... please check out the following events (free, as always, and open to anyone) ...
October 2nd: How can you become a Microsoft Office genius? (level 100 ... which means it's for anyone at any Office level)
October 18th: Advanced Tips and Tricks for Word 2007: Simple Solutions for Complex Documents (level 300 - this one is for advanced users - all about solutions to common Word pet peeves)
Okay ... now onto my rant. I've been running into something quite a bit since the release of Office 2007 and the new file formats that just makes me mad. I'm simply tired of hearing people tell users what they can't do - mostly because so much of it is untrue.
Those of you who have read my writing for awhile know that it's fairly common for me to rant about add-in producers that try to scare users into thinking they need their products. Nothing against add-ins (I create them myself for some clients and even created add-ins as part of my first book a few years ago) ... just be honest and tell people that what you're providing with your add-in is a tool to save time or simplify tasks you could do on your own with Office - chances are (though there are exceptions) they're probably not providing something that you can't do on your own.
Okay - so now with Office 2007 and the new Office Open XML file formats, we have a whole new arena for telling users what they can't do. This isn't just about add-ins - you'll see it in content from a number of sources. By now, if you read about Office or attend related events - you've probably read or heard somewhere that you can't customize the Ribbon, you can't create custom Theme effects or theme background galleries, and you can't create custom SmartArt. Well, each of those statements is unequivocally untrue.
You can't customize the Ribbon, theme effects, slide background galleries, or create custom SmartArt through the user interface of the Office programs. But you absolutely can do every one of those things using Office Open XML. If you don't want to, no worries - no user ever has to see or know anything about the XML behind their documents unless they want to know. But if you want to know and you don't yet ... here's an important tip: if you're an advanced Office user - it's probably a lot easier than you expect.
Open XML (just like, if not even more so than, VBA) doesn't have to be strictly the province of developers. Many tasks you can do using Open XML are simpler than some tasks you probably already do in the Office programs ... and few require any tools other than a text editor (such as the Notepad utility that comes with every copy of Windows - or the Text Edit utility that comes with the Mac OS). What's more, because you already know Office functionality and Office Open XML is based on the features of the Office programs - you may be very pleasantly surprised at how easy and intuitive it is to learn Open XML basics.
No, I'm not saying that basic or new users should try this - editing the XML still requires 'breaking into' your files so to to speak, and doing so could make a mess of your documents if you're not an experienced, confident user. But, with well over half a billion users of Office out there - chances are that quite a few of you are pretty advanced. If you can create complex documents with elements like nested fields or custom content controls in Word, nested functions or PivotTable reports in Excel ... some basic Open XML tasks like customizing the Ribbon just might be the easiest thing you do all day.
When Office 2007 first came out, I wrote to one reporter who had reviewed Office and said that the Ribbon can't be customized. I wrote to call the reporter on that statement as incorrect, and received a reply that it was 'absurd' to think that the typical Office user could just write a little XML. Granted, I'm an Office geek :) - not a typical Office user - but I took that as an insult on behalf of the whole half billion of us.
The question really is - who is the typical Office user? Well, there are lots of definitions. And, when it comes to the many, many of you who are advanced users - I'm just very tired of so many tools and resources telling you what you can't do. Aren't you?
Want to learn more about Office Open XML? There are a lot of resources to help you get started (and a few more coming that I'll tell you about). Many (but not all) are written with developers in mind - but none that I know of are written in Hieroglyphics ... so have no fear :)
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
1 - Check out the upcoming October 2nd webcast mentioned above for a tour of some of my favorite Office resources. For the most part, I'll be giving you a tour of resources for learning what is traditionally thought of as 'end-user' functionality in Office ... but I will include a tour of some of my favorite resources for those who want to go to the next level - such as the Office Developer Center, some superb blogs from the Office product team that focus on Open XML topics (like those from Doug Mahugh and Brian Jones), and sites like OpenXMLDeveloper.org.
2 - If you have my Office 2007 book (Advanced Documents Inside Out) - you can read a primer on Office Open XML written for advanced end-users in Chapter 22 - Office Open XML Essentials (which teaches you how to do such things as edit and format documents in their XML and even basics of customizing the Ribbon) ... and continue on to Chapter 23 - Using VBA and XML together to create add-ins (Chapter 21 is a VBA primer, btw, also written for advanced end-users :) Note that my Chapters 21 and 22 are also included in the 2007 Office System Inside Out book - in case you have that one but don't have my book. [If you don't yet have my book and want to check it out, you can find the TOC and more info here: my books]
3 - Stay tuned! I'm working on a series of basic, online Office Open XML courses for end-users for Microsoft Office Online ... and will post more info about them as soon as the first in the series is published.
... and if you need specific answers to Office Open XML questions ... as with any document-related Office questions - use the Click to Contact link below for a form through which you can shoot me an email...
Meanwhile, Happy Monday everyone!
