>Hi Naomi.
>
>I'm confused about the schema (xsd file).
>When I receive an xml file from an outside vendor, shouldn't they also send the corresponding xsd file with it, or is that my responsibility to create one?

A XML document does not neccessarily require a schema but, ideally, they should supply it (or at least a link to it) in the XML. Have you looked in the XML to see if it is specified?

>Is there an easy way to create an xsd file ?

There a several tools that will take a stab at creating a XSD file from a specified XML (e.g. Liquid XML, XMLSpy) - but it can only be an attempt based on the specific XML content (e.g. optional fields may have been omitted in the XML so, although they would be valid, are not shown in the XSD).