If you have MSDN you can download Office 2003 now... The XML features are very cool and it's quite doable now to create and parse Word documents reasonably easily.

However, I still think that if Automation is an option it's an easier choice to write out documents unless you always write out exactly in the same format. The Word XML format still is based on a schema and very complex style rules that are not trivial to duplicate. However, I susppose you could create a template document and then use only those styles...

FWIW, Word 2003 is much better with HTML as well. In the past HTML input was typically mangled by Word as it couldn't deal with a lot of things. It now does a pretty good job with HTML imports. Exports also have some simpler options that aren't quite as convoluted as past versions of gunk output.

+++ Rick ---

It is very cool
>>I'm working with the Office Tools group on some things with the new XML editor that will help in developing WordML (new XML schema type for Word 2003 documents). It is very cool that Word can now save and open XML files directly, no import/export or .DOC binary files needed which eliminates the need for OLE automation or even from having to have Word to create a Word document.
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>Cool, but this would only be practical for short documents, correct? Intuitively, long documents or possibly even short ones with lots of formatting, etc. would explode file sizes, right?
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>When is Word2003 scheduled for release?
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>Del