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Say goodbye to .doc, .xls, and .ppt

Microsoft announces new file format based on .xml

Jean Paoli was bouncing around the offices here in building 18 today. Who's he? One of the co-creators of XML. Why was he happy?

Because Office just announced their new file formats all built in XML.

"We just turned on 400 million new people to XML," he told us.

Other reports?

Mary Jo Foley and a bunch of other reports. More will be appearing on Microsoft's Office XML page.

This is big news for developers.

Here Brian Jones, program manager on the Microsoft Word team, talks all about what it means.

This is a HUGE change for the Office team. For the first time the default file format will be open and accessible by anyone.

Brian gives us a demo of how you will be able to look inside the new file format at 19:30.

So, what was announced?

Word, Excel, and Powerpoint will get a new file format all based on XML.

The extensions will change from .DOC, .XLS, .PPT to .DOCX, .XLSX, .PPTX.

The new file format is actually enclosed in a ZIP file. Change the extension name to .ZIP and you'll be able to double-click and get access to all the pieces of the new format (Brian in his demo shows what it looks like).

The new file format will be usable on existing versions of Office.

Video clip of the presentation

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