Office 2003 Lost Opportunities Recap

In the last two weeks I?ve expressed my view regarding some of the shortcomings in the Office 2003 XML offering. These blog entries have not been intended as a slam against Microsoft, however I know they listen to feedback on their products and are likely to address these concerns in future versions if someone says something (I?m officially saying something, MS don?t prove me wrong).

Because blog entries tend to get spread out, I thought I?d roll them all up into one recap.

Gripe 1: Office 2003 Lost Opportunities (Excel & XML)
Full XML round-tripping of a workbook not implemented.

Gripe 2: Office 2003 Lost Opportunities (PowerPoint & XML)
PowerPoint 2003 does not add any new XML support. That?s right, you can?t save a PowerPoint document as XML, you can?t programmatically retrieve it as XML, and there is no schema mapping. I also had a followup entry.

Gripe 3: Word XML (Issue 1)
Schema Mapping Should Be More Flexible.

Gripe 3: Word XML (Issue 2)
Attributes Not Visible in the UI.

Gripe 3: Word XML (Issue 3)
No Notion of a Hidden Node.

Gripe 3: Word XML (Issue 4)
No notion of embeddable XML.