Office Compatible 97 HTML Support

The Internet offers important new opportunities for Office to serve its customers better, so World Wide Web support will be a prominent feature of the next release. In particular, Office applications will make it easy for users to convert their documents into HTML, so they can be published on the web or used on a private intranet. For example, Word users will be able to save their documents in HTML, and the conversion from Word format to HTML will occur automatically. In this way, Office will make the power of the web available to users who are not familiar with HTML. As a general rule, Office Compatible 97 products must also make it easy for users to convert their files (or analogous data) into HTML. Some exceptions exist, however, so read Office Compatible 97 Testing Requirements to determine whether this requirement applies to your product.

If your product must support HTML, then it must provide an easy method by which users can convert data from its native format into HTML. For most products, the Save As dialog box should be modified per the following illustration from Word (with Internet Assistant installed).

As illustrated, "HTML Document (*.HTM)" should be added to the contents of the "Save As Type" dropdown list box. When this option is selected, the product should convert the user's data into an appropriately formatted HTML document and save it.

Although this solution will work well for most products, some may find that another solution is better suited to their customers' needs. In that case, please contact the Office Compatible program to discuss your proposal for providing an alternate form of HTML support. Send email to OFFCOMP@MICROSOFT.COM.