Solved Records sent to me in .xml format, can't read

[meebers]

Searching for a means to read an .xml file. Internet comments says that ie10 should be able to read it, when open it looks like code (formating) etc. What am I not seeing here??

 

[Brink]

Hello Meebers,

You might see if using the free program XML Notepad 2007 from Microsoft may work for you for reading .xml files.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[meebers]

Hello Meebers,

You might see if using the free program XML Notepad 2007 from Microsoft may work for you for reading .xml files.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

That did work, Tx Shawn...

 

[Brink]

Well, to answer your original question as to why the xml file looks like code when viewed by your browser (ex: IE10), is because it's not being viewed in an actual program (ex: Office) for xml files. You're just reading the raw code in the browser instead of in a nice format like in Office, but at least you're able to see the data in it.

Viewing XML files
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Since that program doesn't work for you, you could download and install a 60-day trial version of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 from Microsoft below to be able to read your .xml file in the Office XML Handler.

Download Office Professional Plus 2013
​

 

[meebers]

What I am saying is that the program link you gave me XML Notepad 2007 did work for me. I do have Office Pro 13 on my Win 8 machine, since I do not use W8 very often, never thought to try it there. Anyways, I can read the .xml files, although not formatted for easy view. Tx again.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome. It should view better using Office.

 

[Alejandro85]

Office? For XML files?
As far as I know (and tried), Office cannot read XML properly, tried with Word. It's simply not designed to do so, and at most it can open the files as plain text, displaying without any formating or validation.
IE is a good option here, Notepad2 as some syntax coloring support and Visual Studio does wonders with them. No idea about XML Notepad 2007, but seems like a specialized tool, I guess it would be ok.

 

[Total]

Office? For XML files?
As far as I know (and tried), Office cannot read XML properly, tried with Word. It's simply not designed to do so, and at most it can open the files as plain text, displaying without any formating or validation.
IE is a good option here, Notepad2 as some syntax coloring support and Visual Studio does wonders with them. No idea about XML Notepad 2007, but seems like a specialized tool, I guess it would be ok.

you need excel to open xml files not word ..

 

[Alejandro85]

Even Excel doesn't do a good job parsing XMLs. It can handle only those containing table-like structures that fits in a spreadsheet, but cannot show the whole text. It's not simply an XML editing tool, and just converts from a few XMLs to an data sheet.

 

[meebers]

I did use excel 2013 to look at the .xml file. By far the best visibility. Data is scattered everywhere, however was able to selectively copy and past into one coherent workspace. Marking as solved. Tx

 

[Brink]

Glad to hear you were able to get your data from it.