Word for Mac XML question

[amccorq]

publisher accepted by application to become a freelance copy editor
but they had some odd software requirements.

Specifically, they said: "You must be using a PC and running Word 2007
or Word 2003 Professional to copyedit as we use the developer tab to
tag our manuscripts with XML."

Isn't the PC/Mac problem a thing of the past since Macs now run on
Intel chips?

And Word for Mac 2008 is configured to read XML, right?

Any advice? Thanks!

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Specifically, they said: "You must be using a PC and running Word 2007
or Word 2003 Professional to copyedit as we use the developer tab to
tag our manuscripts with XML."

Isn't the PC/Mac problem a thing of the past since Macs now run on
Intel chips?

And Word for Mac 2008 is configured to read XML, right?

You'll be fine with 2008. It read and writes to the new XML-based .docx
files without any problem.
Make sure you use this format though (it's the default anyway).

Corentin

 

[Peter Jamieson]

And Word for Mac 2008 is configured to read XML, right?

It will read the Word 2003 and 2007 XML formats, yes.

But it doesn't appear to have the facilities for displaying and working
with the XML schemas and tagging that your prospective/future employer
requires.

e.g. in Word 2003/2007 I can add an XML Schema, insert "elements" from
that schema, and constrain a user to create a document that conforms to
the schema. Sort of.

But if I then save that document and open it in Word 2008, the XML
elements/tags are nowhere to be seen, and there is no sign of anything
that lets you attach/detach a schema and so on. Can you see them?

OTOH, If I edit that document in Word 2008 and reopen it in Word 2007,
the tags are still there.

So I guess the only practical way to work with these schemas is to have
Word 2007 or Word 2003, that requires that you are running a version of
Windows that can run Word 2003/2007, and to do that on a Mac you'd
either need to boot a copy of Windows, either as the primary operating
system or e.g. as a bootcamp partition, or under something such as
Parallels or VMWare.

Isn't the PC/Mac problem a thing of the past since Macs now run on
Intel chips?

i.e., I guess that depends on which problem you mean.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Peter Jamieson]

How do you apply XML tags in Word 2008?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[CyberTaz]

Further to what Peter advised, Mac Office & Win Office are *not* identical.
There are & will continue to be a number of differences But the "Intel chip"
has nothing to do with it. The 2 primary factors are that the programs are
written to run on different operating systems [which run on the Intel
chips], and the fact that Win Office is written for a market approximately
10-20 times the size of the Mac Office market.

The bottom line is that Word 2008 is not equipped as an XML
authoring/editing application. It is capable of saving in an XML format but
it isn't valid XML - it's constructed so as to enable Word to reopen the
file as though it were a regular Word document for further editing. Word
2008 can also read an XML file, but then again so can TextEdit & Safari.
That doesn't mean they can do anything of value with it Perhaps the next
release of Mac Office will see the arrival of XML capabilities as are
currently offered in Word 2007.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

How do you apply XML tags in Word 2008?

You don't do anything (if I understand your question properly). Word
..docx is files are entirely in XML. Word does it for you.

Are you actually talking about adding *additional* XML tags int he
document??
I'm not even sure how they'd do that in Windows (I hardly ever use it).
You could edit the file in a text editor like Text Wrangler, but that
would be a LOT of work to be done *by hand*. That sure isn't a feature
built into Office 2008 for Mac.


Corentin

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Are you actually talking about adding *additional* XML tags int he

document??

Yes, that's what I assumed was meant by the following:

<<
as we use the developer tab to
tag our manuscripts with XML."
Otherwise they woldn't need to use a special facility.

It's basically a facility in Word 2003/2007 to allow Word to be used as
an XML editor (e.g. as part of a corporate workflow) where the data the
user enters is consteained by what MS generally calls a "custom" schema,
i.e. one that isn't their WordProcessingML schema or related schemas.

The process in Word 2003/2007 is that you add your own XML schema into
the (Office) schema library. Then there's a taskpane that lets you add
elements from the schema - "tags" appear in the document. The structure
can be made to conform with the scema, and text typed in the elements
can also be made to conform to the schema. It's all layered on top of
WordML.

I asked about Word 2008 because although I've never seen those features
on the Mac versions of Word, on the Win version, some substantial chunks
of functionality do not even appear on the menus on the English language
version until, e.g. you enable Asian/RTL script support etc. So I have
to assume that something similar may be true on Mac.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Yes, that's what I assumed was meant by the following:

<<
as we use the developer tab to
tag our manuscripts with XML."

Well I understand it now :-\
That's not very common (and indeed unsupported under MacOS X).

Otherwise they woldn't need to use a special facility.

It's basically a facility in Word 2003/2007 to allow Word to be used as
an XML editor (e.g. as part of a corporate workflow) where the data the
user enters is consteained by what MS generally calls a "custom" schema,
i.e. one that isn't their WordProcessingML schema or related schemas.

FYI, is you change the extension of a docx document to zip, you can then
unzip the structure. The xml document that forms the core of it can then
be accessed and used in any XML editor (not Word).
You need to revert the process afterwards to reform the docx.

Tedious, but at least it is a possibility.


[...]

I asked about Word 2008 because although I've never seen those features
on the Mac versions of Word, on the Win version, some substantial chunks
of functionality do not even appear on the menus on the English language
version until, e.g. you enable Asian/RTL script support etc. So I have
to assume that something similar may be true on Mac.

Unofrtunately not :-\

Corentin

 

[Peter Jamieson]

FYI, is you change the extension of a docx document to zip, you can then

unzip the structure. The xml document that forms the core of it can then
be accessed and used in any XML editor (not Word).
You need to revert the process afterwards to reform the docx.

Tedious, but at least it is a possibility.

Identify and acquire the correct tool for the job, is all I'd say to the OP.

Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

Yes, that's what I assumed was meant by the following:

<<
as we use the developer tab to
tag our manuscripts with XML."

Well I understand it now :-\
That's not very common (and indeed unsupported under MacOS X).

Otherwise they woldn't need to use a special facility.

It's basically a facility in Word 2003/2007 to allow Word to be used as
an XML editor (e.g. as part of a corporate workflow) where the data the
user enters is consteained by what MS generally calls a "custom" schema,
i.e. one that isn't their WordProcessingML schema or related schemas.

FYI, is you change the extension of a docx document to zip, you can then
unzip the structure. The xml document that forms the core of it can then
be accessed and used in any XML editor (not Word).
You need to revert the process afterwards to reform the docx.

Tedious, but at least it is a possibility.


[...]

I asked about Word 2008 because although I've never seen those features
on the Mac versions of Word, on the Win version, some substantial chunks
of functionality do not even appear on the menus on the English language
version until, e.g. you enable Asian/RTL script support etc. So I have
to assume that something similar may be true on Mac.

Unofrtunately not :-\

Corentin