Excel 2003 Programming: A Developer's Notebook

Generate HTML Output

If a user does not have InfoPath and he opens a form data file, that file appears as XML in his browser. The InfoPath SDK provides a down-level tool (XDown) to convert a form file’s XML to read-only HTML so others can view InfoPath output.

Note

InfoPath forms can only be viewed by users who have InfoPath installed, unless you are using the XDown tool to create an HTML view of the form.

How to do it

To use XDown:

1. Download and install the InfoPath SDK. By default, the SDK installs XDown in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 2003 Developer Resources\Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 SDK\Tools\XDown.

2. Copy the files in the XDown folder to the project folder where you are working, or make them otherwise available for use from the command line.

3. Create a subfolder within the project folder to receive the output of XDown.

4. Run XDown from the command line on your InfoPath template (.xsn). XDown decompiles the template and converts the views from the template into XSL files that can be used to view form files in HTML.

5. Add processing instructions to form files that you want non-InfoPath users to be able to view.

For example, the following command line converts the views from Assets.xsn into XSL that can be used to display asset form data; output files are written to the Down subfolder:

   XDown /d assets.xsn Down

You can then use the XSL files written to the Down folder to transform asset form data files into HTML that can be viewed from a browser. The ...