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Any way to tell if an arbitrary .docx file is in the Strict Office Open XML format vs. the Transitional format? (ECMA-376)

  1. I've searched around the web, and haven't found any procedure or tool that can distinguish those .docx files that are encoded as Strict ECMA-376 and those that are not. (same drill for .xlsx files) Most discussions center on which formats are supported by a given app, e.g. LibreOffice, but not how to distinguish files.

Dovetail question: 2. Does anyone know of any documentation that lays out the differences in the four editions of ECMA-376? http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm

On that page, you'll see first edition, second edition, third edition, fourth edition. First edition was 2006, and fourth edition is Dec 2012. None of the documentation appears to describe the revisions from one edition to the next, no "What's New in this edition" or anything like that. (In some cases they note structural changes, like a topic that was housed in Part 1 last time is now in Part 2, etc.)

Wikipedia describes the structural contents of the first two editions...: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML#Versions

...but has nothing to say about third or fourth editions, or substantive changes between the first two. Can anyone point me to documentation that lays out the iterative changes?

(ECMA-376 is normally mirrored by ISO 29500. ISO might document revisions, but their pubs are paywalled, and not just any paywall, but a 352 Swiss Franc paywall, which at today's exchange rates comes to $394.20...)

Solution

  • There are a couple of things to your questions:

    1. Difference between Strict and Transitional

    The main difference between Strict documents and Transitional documents is namespaces. The namespaces in Strict all contain #purl.org", as far as I remember, whereas namespaces in Transitional contain the word "microsoft". See the exact strings in Part 1 of OpenXml Standard for Strict and Part 4 for Transitional.

    1. I do not think there is such a document available - and neither for the ISO-version.

    And finally - you say that ECMA is mirrored by ISO. It is actually the other way around. Whenever ISO publishes a new version of the standard, an (almost) exact copy is published by ECMA (with their letter-head etc) afterwards.

    And finally, finally, ISO OpenXml standard is free of charge. You can find the latest edition at http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html (search for "29500" on the page).

    Should you wish to look a bit into what we do in the ISO working group, this is a good start: http://jtc1sc34.org/wg4 .

    Jesper Lund Stocholm Appointed Expert to ISO SC34 committee working with OpenXml.