Custom XML update for Word 2007 (KB974631) is now available [Updated]

Microsoft has released an updated version of the Custom XML update (KB974631) for Microsoft Office Word 2007. This update contains stability and performance improvements for Office Word 2007. You can download the update from the Microsoft Download Center.

The version 2 update to the patch is to improve interoperability with the April 2010 and future Cumulative Updates for Word 2007.

This is an update to Microsoft Office Word 2007. Generally, customers who purchase or license Word 2007 from Microsoft after January 10, 2010 for use in the United States and its territories must use updated software that does not include a particular custom XML tagging implementation.

Visit the following Microsoft Website to obtain this update for Word 2007:

Versions of Office Word 2007 that are distributed by Microsoft after January 10, 2010 no longer read the custom XML markup that may be contained within .docx, .docm, or .xml files. The new versions of Office Word 2007 can still open these files, but any custom XML markup is removed. Custom XML markup in Word documents is visible in the Office Word user interface as pink (the default color) tag names surrounding text in a document.

If you apply this update to versions of Office Word that were distributed by Microsoft before January 11, 2010, the updated version will treat custom XML markup in the same way as versions of Office Word 2007 that are distributed by Microsoft after January 10, 2010.

  • Office Word content controls are not affected by this update. Content controls are a common method of structuring document content and mapping content to the XML data that is stored in a document.
  • Open XML standards (all ECMA and ISO versions) are not affected by this update.
  • Custom XML markup that is stored within Word 97-2003 document (*.doc) files is not affected by this update.
  • Ribbon XML and Ribbon Extensibility are not affected by this update.
  • The Word object model is not changed by this update. However some Word object model methods that deal with custom XML markup may return different results.

For technical details on the affected custom XML tagging functionality, please see KB978951. See the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Description of the Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB974631) for further information about this update.

Office 2007 Weblinks / Tools / Resources