Many of the binary sections refer back to Windows architecture which is unknown to software engineers outside Microsoft, and would require analytic and engineering work. Examples are found in font definition, conditional formatting for paragraph, table cell, table row, and table style settings.

Remove binary code and anything else which inhibits understanding of the Specification

2.8.2.16

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Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment NZ-0053 (Modified: 2008-01-11) We agree that underspecified features inhibit interoperability, and instances of this should be corrected. We note that independently of DIS 29500, many types of non-XML content are allowed in office document formats, such as ISO/IEC 26300 (ODF) for the benefit of the users, including image and media formats or Object Linking and Embedding (see ODF standard (§9.3.3) which defines the <draw:object-ole> element). Regarding “Security issue: OOXML allows the inclusion of arbitrary binary blobs of data in ways that could be abused my malicious document authors” Binary content is used in existing ISO standard document formats, including ISO26300 and all versions of PDF which are ratified ISO standards. All file formats of all kinds are subject to tampering challenges, including binary and XML document formats. Binary and other objects embedded within DIS29500 documents require each content type to have a full declaration, allowing any implementer to manage that content using the identifying information. The parsing of document formats within applications should be regarded as an important part of working with that document format. This includes properly and safely utilizing embedded binary content, as well as discarding inappropriately defined or malformed binary content. Regarding DEVMODE for printer settings: As indicated in our response to CL-0044, CL-0049, CO-0005, CO-0147, CO-0148, DE-0010, DE-0153, DK-0106, DK-0152, DK-0160, FR-0019, GB-0047, GR-0012, IN-0053, IN-0079, IR-0006, KR-0003, NZ-0014, US-0037 , it is recommended that a Printer Settings Part contain well documented XML content for improved interoperability; Regarding the use of bitmasks in the specification Bitmasks are non-binary information that are fully specified in DIS 29500. Examples of XSLT transformation that can handle bitmasks are included in our response to DE-0102, FR-0185, GB-0182, US-0123, VE-0068 and other comments. Regarding Custom Property Part: As indicated in our response to CA-0009, CL-0042, DE-0007, DK-0102, FR-0015, GB-0042, PR-0010, US-0034 a change has been made to include information specifying that it is recommended that a Custom Property Part contain XML content for improved interoperability. Regarding the use of “bstr”: As indicated in our response to CA-0065, CO-0231, CZ-0038, FR-0377, GB-0592, GR-0093, KE-0065, PT-0114, US-0162, VE-0069, we propose a way of escaping characters in bstr constructs. Regarding Intellectual Property For detailed information about IPR in DIS 29500, please refer to the proposed disposition of comments AU-0002, BG-0002, CH-0004, CH-0019, GR-0001, GR-0015, IN-0006, IN-0070, IR-0057, KE-0074, KE-0075, NZ-0010, NZ-0054, PT-0001, PT-0003, PT-0004, US-0003, and ZA-0008. Finally, it is important to note that the initial draft received considerable contributions through the work of Ecma TC 45, and, as a result, grew from approximately 2,000 to 6,000 pages, which constitutes the current DIS 29500. We believe that a great deal of due diligence was performed to ensure that the contents of the spec were specified completely. In response to the comments we received from National Bodies, we have made many corrections, clarifications and improvements to the specification. One important area addressed was the specification of features that needed additional documentation and we believe that all necessary interoperability information have been disclosed, as listed in the response to comment BR-0001, CA-0020, and NO-0009, among others. It is important to note that DIS 29500, with the modifications proposed by Ecma, do not depends on any particular platform such as Windows or others. A growing number of implementations of ECMA-376 are becoming available, including those released by Apple (Mac OS X Leopard, iWork 08, iPhone), Adobe (InDesign), Microsoft (Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, Office 2008 Mac OS X), Novell (Suse Open Office) , Google (Search / Preview), Mindjet (MindManager), Intergen, OpenXML/ODF Translator (Open Source project on Sourceforge), Dataviz (DocumentsToGo on Palm OS, MacLinkPlus on Mac OS X Leopard), NeoOffice, Altova (XMLSpy), MarkLogic (XML Content Server), Datawatch (Monarch Pro), QuickOffice (QuickOffice Premier 5.0 on Symbian), Altsoft (XML2PDF Server 2007) and those under development by Corel (WordPerfect), AbiWord, Gnome (GNumeric), Xandros, Linspire, Turbolinux and others. These implementations are now available on many platforms, including Linux, the Macintosh, Windows, and handheld devices (PalmOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile). Similar Comments: GR-0012 , NO-0008 , NZ-0050 , NZ-0052 , VE-0002