What to do with my Excel .xml file

[TrippyTom]

Hi everyone,

This may sound naive, but I'm new to using xml in Excel. I want to make a macro that will create a contact list in PPT from Excel data. I was thinking of making an xml file, but do I need to go that far, or should I just use a normal Excel file instead? I understand the purpose of xml is to separate the data from structure (format).

Is there any advantage to using .xml? If so, is it easy to access the data from an xml file in vba? I am not asking anyone to provide a complete answer; just to point me in the right direction.

I have so far managed to write the xml map for the data's structure and import it into an Excel file. But now I'm asking myself, "what now?"

[Bob Phillips]

I looked at this a long time ago, believing the hype that XML would provide an application independent means of transporting and sharing data, but came to the conclusion that it is just so much hype. Sure it passes data around as ubiquitous text, big deal, but adds nothing that I can see except overhead. Whenever a customer introduces XML I sigh, I know that have been reading the marketing spin but have no clue really. Excel can read in and write XML, but it is hardly worth the effort IMO.

[Paul_Hossler]

My 2 cents -- If the Excel source is under your control (i.e. your design) and the PP ingest is also under your control, then make it easy on yourself: Simple, fixed format interface flat file or delimited flat file

Paul

[TrippyTom]

ok, thanks guys. That's what I was looking for. I thought perhaps it was hyped up as well, but wanted to see what you thought. I'll mark it solved.
Thanks anyway.