Binary Exfoliation Using XML and Word 2003
Applies to: Word 2003
Over time, oft-reused documents or templates that have been around awhile tend to gather 'binary dust'.
To quickly clear away the grime and 'rebuild' the document/template anew, the Microsystems Solutions Center has exercised a technique we refer to as "Binary Exfoliation". Learn how -- and when -- to use this new process, brought to you by the File | Save As | XML feature introduced in Word 2003.
Symptoms which indicate the need to 'exfoliate' your document or template:
Binary build-up is present if your document exhibits any of the following characteristics:
- your template or document is void of graphics, yet has ballooned in file size
- tracked changes spontaneously appear when you press [Enter] on a numbered or bulleted paragraph
- tracked changes ignite when you perform an Insert | File
- your Headers/Footers hang or misbehave when inserting a DocID
- you can't bear the thought of manually-rebuilding your templates when you move into Word 2003
- you need to exterminate missing -- yet unsubstituteable -- fonts
General instructions for binary exfoliation:
Using Word 2003…
- File | Open desired document or template
- File | Save As | XML
- File | Close
- File | Open, File | Save As | document or template
- Save your document or template again using the DocXtools "Slow Save At End" function…the pig icon
File exfoliation, complete!
What you lose, what you retain:
This process round-trips everything except toolbars, keyboard shortcuts, and the "binary build-up" you want to eliminate anyway.
To remove or reassign unwanted fonts:
Open the resulting XML file in any ASCII file editor, and seek out the "
Microsystems' take on Word's XML result:
Think of the resulting XML file as "Reveal Codes on Steroids": finally, a way to peer into Word's psyche.
