Office 2007 and its new file format
iQ.Suite Tips & Tricks for IBM Domino
Now that Microsoft’s new Office version has been released, we have been receiving a lot of questions
recently about the file restrictions of iQ.Suite.
The structure of a file is what basically determines the configuration of the fingerprints that are used to
ensure reliable detection. In order to successfully work within MS Office 2007 documents, users have to
be familiar with their structure and make-up - just as with all other documents. As this structure is
completely different to the previous file formats used, it is no longer enough to limit checks to just one
particular Office 2007 fingerprint.
With the new Office package, the pre-set file format is Office Open XML.
Office Open XML is a file format based on several XML files, in which individual files are combined
with the help of ZIP. An Office 2007 file is therefore nothing more than a zip file that contains all
components of a document (parts and items) in the form of XML files.
Parts are the individual components (modules) of the document’s content (text, graphics, images, etc.),
while items are descriptive metadata that determine how the individual components of the document are
to be put together and displayed.
The structure, name and path (within the zip file) of the main part depend on the type of Office Open
XML document involved (word processing document, spreadsheet, etc.).
As a minimum, an Office Open XML word processing document contains an XML file named
‘[Content_Types].xml’ in the ZIP file’s root directory as well as three other folders: ‘_rels’, ‘docProps’ and
a folder containing the actual document data.
Simply rename a .docx file to .zip and unpack the file with your standard packer.
It is easy to recognise the file type by looking at the file endings, just as before. The ‘old’ endings have
been retained and an additional letter has been added for recognition purposes. So for instance, the ending
.docx signifies an Office Word 2007 XML document. The file type with the ending .docm is created if an
Office Word 2007 XML document contains VBA macro code.
When working with iQ.Suite, you need to be aware of the following:
The folder ‘docProps’ can contain thumbnails for the individual files - irrespective of the data type
(it might be text). That means that even if the data itself contains no images, the meta information
might still contain images in the form of these thumbnails. In iQ.Suite, these too will be
recognised and dealt with appropriately after unpacking.
The configured unpacker will unpack Office 2007 files on the basis of their fingerprint.
iQ.Suite will in turn check the files contained therein on the basis of their fingerprint and deal with
them in accordance with the settings.
Office 2007 files are initially handled in the same way as zip files. To distinguish them from ‘real’
zip files, you have to create your own fingerprints.
To create fingerprints for Office 2007 documents, you have several options to choose from.
The common fingerprint for zip and Office 2007 documents is:
0000 04 50 4B 03 04
You can create zipped XML documents with this combination:
0000 04 50 4B 03 04
001E 13 5B 43 6F 6E 74 65 6E 74 5F 54 79 70 65 73 5D 2E 78 6D 6C
To find an Excel 2007 document, you can use this fingerprint:
0000 04 50 4B 03 04
001E 13 5B 43 6F 6E 74 65 6E 74 5F 54 79 70 65 73 5D 2E 78 6D 6C
0030..-1 13 77 6F 72 6B 62 6F 6F 6B 2E 78 6D 6C 2E 72 65 6C 73 50 4B
Word 2007 has the following fingerprint:
0000 04 50 4B 03 04
001E 13 5B 43 6F 6E 74 65 6E 74 5F 54 79 70 65 73 5D 2E 78 6D 6C
0030..-1 13 64 6F 63 75 6D 65 6E 74 2E 78 6D 6C 2E 72 65 6C 73 50 4B
PowerPoint 2007:
0000 04 50 4B 03 04
001E 12 5B 43 6F 6E 74 65 6E 74 5F 54 79 70 65 73 5D 2E 78 6D
0030..-1 0B 70 70 74 2F 73 6C 69 64 65 73 2F
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