[sims] XML Linked Documents - Word & Excel

[ITGURU]

We have staff that open XML files from SIMS, both data and letters, which are excel or word. However in SIMS they are stored as XML files, so we associate say the letters with word so automatically opens. However, if they then have data we have to re-associate to excel.

 

How do you manage this with your end users? do you train them to save the files first, then right click OPEN with and choose the program they want??

 

By default Word and Excel don't appear in the open with list so have to navigate through the c drive to the office App initially.

 

Just looking for an easier way to manage this.

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

We don't have that issue.

Here is a link to a good explanation of how it should work

xml - How to associate a Windows application with a particular file type but share that association with other applications? - Stack Overflow

Edited April 28, 2016 by Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun

[vikpaw]

It's a good explanation. In practise what you need to do is associate .xml files with the Microsoft XML Editor, you can just do it the usual GUI way by right click, open with, and setting the default program in windows. It should show up if you have Office installed. I think it's an orange icon.

 

This was a link at the bottom of that other link, which explains it in plain language : windows - Is there a user-friendly way to set the application used by MS Office's "XML Editor" to open non-Office XML files? - Super User

 

The complication occurs if you're using a newer version of Office after 2010, because I think things changed after that and they started to use something else as the main program to open .xml files with. A Google search throws up a number of people with issues.

[bobsmith]

Just had a play with this because I was initially confused by what you were saying.

 

Our student profiles (which we have set to produce as a word document within SIMS) do indeed appear listed as blahblah.xml when you look at a students "linked documents". But in reality they are .docx which is the new xml based MS Word document format. They open straight into Word as expected. You wouldn't want to open them in an xml editor surely?

[vikpaw]

The xml editor was / is the way Microsoft can have xml files which will open in Word, Excel etc. All with the same file type. The association for .xml is with the editor which inspects the file and determines which program to open it with. There's no other way to set the association and guarantee any random .xml will go to the correct program.

The name of the program 'xml editor' is a bit of a misnomer because it's not used to open the file in its Xml like state for editing, it's just used as an inspector / handler.

[Arthur]

The complication occurs if you're using a newer version of Office after 2010, because I think things changed after that and they started to use something else as the main program to open .xml files with.

I did a quick test with Office 2016 (App-V version) and the XML files opened correctly in both Word and Excel.

 

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX64\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\MSOXMLED.EXE" /verb OPEN "D:\Word.xml"
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\VFS\ProgramFilesCommonX64\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\MSOXMLED.EXE" /verb OPEN "D:\Excel.xml"