About exporting XML data

Note  XML features, except for saving files in the XML Spreadsheet format, are available only in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003.

This topic explains some rules that Microsoft Excel applies every time that you export XML data.

Validation

Excel validates data against the XML map when the Validate data against schema for import and export option is enabled in the XML Map Properties dialog box.

Rules Applied When Exporting XML Data

The following rules are applied when exporting XML data:

• UTF-8 encoding is used to write the data.
• All namespaces are defined in the Root element.
• Comment nodes are not preserved.
• Empty items are not created when blank cells exist for an optional element.
• Empty items are created when blank cells exist for a required element.
• Excel overwrites existing namespace prefixes. The default namespace is assigned a prefix of ns0. Successive namespace will be designated ns1, ns2 to ns<count> where <count> is the number of namespaces in written to the XML file.