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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
by thristian 10y ago
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.
- 13of40 10y agoThere are some parts of it, like VB macros, that are still stored in the old format before being put in the zip file.
- davidgerard 10y agoIn 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 http://vmiklos.hu/blog/doctok.html#comment-header