ProductsDiffDogOOXML and ZIP Differencing

Altova DiffDog® 2008 includes enhanced support to diff/merge Office Open XML (OOXML) files and ZIP archives.

Many diff/merge tools treat Office Open XML (OOXML) files and ZIP archives as binary file types that are simply recognized as identical or different based on file size and modification date. DiffDog® 2008 empowers you to compare and display detailed differences in the contents of Office 2007 (OOXML) file pairs or the contents of ZIP archive pairs. You can even merge differences in compressed files.

Office Open XML (also commonly known as OOXML or OpenXML) is a powerful emerging specification for electronic documents and is the default file format for the popular Microsoft Office 2007 suite. Recently approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an International Standard, OOXML was originally developed by Microsoft to replace the binary file formats that it had traditionally used for data storage.

Office 2007 (OOXML) and ZIP comparisons are selected from the Directory Compare window since, like directories, both file types are likely to contain multiple files.

Office 2007 (OOXML) and ZIP files that appear in a Directory Compare window are identified with a unique icon.

Compare Office 2007 (OOXML) Documents

Office 2007 (OOXML) files are created by Microsoft for Office 2007 applications and can be thought of as a specialized form of a ZIP archive that acts as a wrapper around multiple individual XML files. DiffDog® 2008 lets you examine files within pairs of Office 2007 (OOXML) documents and even merge differences in either direction, with full support for all the advanced XML-aware differencing options DiffDog offers during XML file comparisons.

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In the screenshot below, the files named app.xml stored inside two Microsoft Word 2007 documents are shown in File Compare view. The app.xml file stores document statistics.

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You can also display and edit file pairs stored inside Office 2007 (OOXML) files in Grid View. In many cases Grid View can provide a more easily comprehensible representation of the file contents.

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Compare ZIP Archives

ZIP files are archives that can hold one or more files of any file type in a special compressed form designed to save storage space and minimize disk and network activity. DiffDog® 2008 displays lists of the files contained within ZIP archives in the familiar Directory Compare view.

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DiffDog® 2008 allows you to open file pairs stored inside a ZIP archive by clicking any file pair in the Directory Compare window. DiffDog even applies the correct comparison options based on file extensions, so you examine the files and merge differences with the same functionality available when comparing the uncompressed originals. In other words, you can:

• Compare and merge text or source code files stored in ZIP archive just like comparing uncompressed text files.
• Compare and edit XML files stored in ZIP format with advanced XML-aware functionality.
• Recognize individual binary files stored within pairs of ZIP archives as identical or different.

In the screenshot below the comment on line 2 of the file on the left is ignored because it is irrelevant to the XML equivalence of the two documents.

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Process New File Extensions

Perhaps you know of additional file extensions that are also stored in a compressed ZIP-conformant format. The DiffDog® 2008 Options dialog lets you add the file extension to the DiffDog File types list and assign ZIP diff/merge processing.

Now you can apply the advanced capabilities of Altova DiffDog® 2008 to perform detailed comparisons of Office 2007 (OOXML) files and ZIP archives, identify differences, and even merge changes with unprecedented accuracy, efficiency, and convenience. This functionality complements the Office 2007 (OOXML) capabilities of Altova XMLSpy® 2008, MapForce® 2008, and StyleVision® 2008, to give all developers a comprehensive set of tools to work with the Office 2007 (OOXML) files and ZIP archives.

Let DiffDog® 2008 track down differences in the Office 2007 (OOXML) files and ZIP archives associated with all your projects – download a free trial today!