Special Edition Using® Microsoft® Office Word 2003

Working with XML Schemas

The full power of XML stems from combining the flexibility to create tags using whatever names you want and in whatever structure you want with enforcing strict compliance to that structure. The rules that are used to enforce this strict compliance are called XML schemas. Word provides you with the ability to manage the schemas you have available and to control which schemas are enforced for a given document.

Understanding XML Schemas

An XML schema is an abstract description of the structure you expect to use in an XML file. In the schema file (normally named with an extension of .xsd), you will find things such as these:

• Namespace definition

• Object/tag types (element, complex type, attribute, and so on)

• Object/tag names ...