How do I open an xml file?

[toolpro]

Via email I receive reports from our company server (unix) as xml files, but I cannot open them. Our sysadmin can open them as Excel spreadsheets on his pc however. Can you advise me? I am running MS Office 2008, v12.3.6 on OS X 10.5.8. Thank you!
Rick

 

[TattooedMac]

Gday Rick.

Im not going to go into MS Office as I don't use that as my Word Processor but for a quick way is to control>click on the file which opens a Contextual Menu and then Open With. Then go down to Text Edit and you should be able to view the .xml file. Or double click on the file and see what App opens so you can view it. You can also use any Text Editor ~ Text Mate, Textastic and such, Code Editors like Xcode as well, MS Excel, Apples Numbers. See how you go and report back.
If the file is still in the email, drag it out and drop it on Desktop so you can try.

Cheers

 

[toolpro]

how do I open an XML file?

This works to open the file as a text only doc using almost any application, but I need to open it as a spreadsheet. I have asked the sysadmin to review how he opens them as spreadsheets on his pc. Thanks for the suggestion though!
Rick

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Importing of XML into a Excel spreadsheet doesn't seem to be supported it seems.

 

[toolpro]

The curious thing is that, as I understand it, all MS Office files are xml. Weird.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Not exactly true, MS Office uses Open XML so normal XML files have to be converted to Open XML to be viewed in MS Office applications..

You might want to check to see if your sysadmin is doing the conversion and then opening it in Excel or not..

 

[chas_m]

Are we 100 percent certain that we don't mean XLS files, Excel's native format?

 

[toolpro]

No, not xls. Now I am trying to find a converter from "XML" to MS "Open XML", but have not been successful so far. I have attached a screenshot of the same xml file that sysadmin opened successfully in his pc/Excel.
Thanks for hanging in there guys!
Rick

 

[TattooedMac]

I found this in "List of software that supports Office Open XML" LINK Very helpful.

The Mac OS X-based NeoOffice office suite supports opening, editing, and saving of most Office Open XML documents since version 2.1

So download NeoOffice and give it a try.

HTH

Cheers

 

[toolpro]

Great! Will do later today, and report back.
Rick

 

[toolpro]

Ratbait! NeoOffice is only for Intel machines, and I have the last of the PowerPCs. This cannot be this hard, so I am still looking. I'll revisit your link again today. I had found it earlier, but found it too technical. Maybe not. My particular little problem is that I manage virtually all of the reporting (other than financial) here at ToolPro, all from my laptop.
Thanks,
Rick

 

[vansmith]

Excel 2008 doesn't have XML support like it's Windows complement (source). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that many converters exist precisely because XML is supported in the Windows version.

Is there any way that the logs generated (they look like logs so please correct me if I'm wrong) can be converted into something more Mac Excel friendly?

 

[toolpro]

My thanks to all of you who have attempted to solve my problem for me, but I am beaten. Sysadmin is looking at 3rd party call reporting software. And a pox on Digium phones for their inadequate data output and pathetic no-support.
Best regards to all,
Rick