As part of their Open Specification Promise, Microsoft have finally released documentation for their binary office formats (DOC, PPT, XLS). Additionally, they have started an open source project to convert these formats into their respective 2007 package formats.

I've gotta say, this has taken me quite by surprise. I had always assumed that the binary formats would be ignored now that the new model is so easily accessible from code. Just my luck that it comes out about 18 months after I could have really used it.

Stupid word automation.