Figure 3-20. Open XML format??™s file container
Viewing the XML
To see what??™s inside an Excel document, you must change the extension to *.zip.
In the Downloads section for this book on the Apress web site, find the file Chapter 3\
NwindEmps.xlsx, rename it NwindEmps.zip, and copy it to a folder on your PC called
unzippedExcelfiles (you??™ll have to create the folder first). This file contains Northwind
employee information that was typed or pasted in (not imported).
Even though we could open the files directly from the ZIP file, we will create a folder into
which we??™ll extract the contents of the ZIP file. Be sure keep ???Use folder names??? checked in the
options list. Figure 3-21 shows the Extract function in WinZip.
You can see the file structure associated with Office documents clearly once the files are
extracted (see Figure 3-22). I??™ve created a folder named unzippedExcelfiles to store them in.
CHAPTER 3 n USING XML IN EXCEL 2007 120
Figure 3-21. Check ???Use folder names??? in the Extract dialog.
Figure 3-22. Excel??™s XML file structure
The _rels Folder
The _rels folder is the first place you should look to see what your Excel file is made of. The
_rels folder contains a file named .rels. This file contains the top-level relationships. In your
file, they should look like Figure 3-23.
Figure 3-23. .rels file contents
This file contains three relationship items. Table 3-2 describes the relationship attributes.
Table 3-2. Relationship Attributes
Attribute Description
Id Any string (must be unique in the .
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