Office 2003 XML

Chapter 9. Using Web Services in Excel, Access, and Word

The web services facilities in Microsoft Office are largely separate from the XML features covered elsewhere in this book, although Microsoft has often sold XML and web services as the same thing. Web services, after all, use XML as a key part of their program-to-program communication. On the other hand, most of the ways that Microsoft Office supports XML are very distinct from web services. The web services support in most parts of Office is completely separate from the rest of the XML support, relying on Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and the Microsoft Office Web Services Toolkit, which generates code programmers can use to access Web Services.

Warning

It’s worth noting that the web services field is in significant flux. SOAP has moved from Version 1.1 to 1.2, a new version of WSDL is under development, and UDDI may eventually be replaced with other technologies. For now, be certain to test the services you use, and keep an eye out for new versions of the Office Web Services Toolkit.

What Are Web Services?

In a general sense, web services are programs you can access over the Web. In their broadest definition, tools like Google, Amazon, Mapquest, and other web-based applications are certainly web services. More typically, web services, as opposed to the regular Web, are about program-to-program communication. Web sites can make information available to other programs, and many are using XML to spare the other programs ...