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While we were adding support for Office 2007 files to be indexed in the upcoming version of Zoom (information on V6 here), we noticed that there was some ambiguity and lack of documentation on the MIME content-types you should use to serve Office 2007 files such as DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX.
Some sites suggest using "x-zip-compressed" as the content-type because Office 2007 files are really ZIP packages containing XML files of a certain format. This is not recommended because it will cause most programs to handle the file as a ZIP file. So a download manager may open the file in WinZip for example, instead of Office 2007.
Similarly, search engines (such as V6 of Zoom) may believe this is a ZIP file and not index it as as it should. While in most cases, Zoom will be able to recognize the file via the file extension in the URL, there are some cases where this would not apply, for example, if you are using a download script to serve the file (e.g. "download.php?fileid=1234") and there is no filename provided in the header. In this case, the content-type is the only piece of information we have to determine how to index the file.
Below is a list of the recommended content-types for Office 2007 files, which would allow it to be uniquely identified:
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" (for .docx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template" (for .dotx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation" (for .pptx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow" (for .ppsx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template" (for .potx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet" (for .xlsx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template" (for .xltx files)
These content-types are also supported:
"vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.addin.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12"
Some sites suggest using "x-zip-compressed" as the content-type because Office 2007 files are really ZIP packages containing XML files of a certain format. This is not recommended because it will cause most programs to handle the file as a ZIP file. So a download manager may open the file in WinZip for example, instead of Office 2007.
Similarly, search engines (such as V6 of Zoom) may believe this is a ZIP file and not index it as as it should. While in most cases, Zoom will be able to recognize the file via the file extension in the URL, there are some cases where this would not apply, for example, if you are using a download script to serve the file (e.g. "download.php?fileid=1234") and there is no filename provided in the header. In this case, the content-type is the only piece of information we have to determine how to index the file.
Below is a list of the recommended content-types for Office 2007 files, which would allow it to be uniquely identified:
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" (for .docx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template" (for .dotx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation" (for .pptx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow" (for .ppsx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template" (for .potx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet" (for .xlsx files)
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template" (for .xltx files)
These content-types are also supported:
"vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.addin.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12"
"vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12"