Looking to leverage Open XML file formats in order to develop custom solutions? Then look no further than the Open XML SDK. Microsoft is currently offering devs version 2 of the software development kit as a testing release. The August 2009 Community Technology Preview of Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office is currently up for grabs via the Microsoft Download Center. According to the Redmond company, developers will be able to use the SDK to access strongly typed part as well as content classes that are set up for use with Open XML documents.

“The Open XML Format SDK 2.0 is built on top of the System.IO.Packaging API and provides strongly typed part classes to manipulate Open XML documents. The SDK also uses the .NET Framework Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) technology to provide strongly typed object access to the XML content inside the parts of Open XML documents,” the Redmond company informed.

As some of you undoubtedly know, Open XML, the default file format of Office 2007 and Office 2010, is also an ISO standard. Microsoft did push hard for Open XML, or open ECMA 376, to be approved as the ISO/IEC 29500 standard in order to take a leverage point away from Open Office, which had Open Document Format. Open XML offers a set of XML schemas designed to represent spreadsheets, charts, presentations, as well as word processing documents.

“The Open XML Format SDK 2.0 simplifies the task of manipulating Open XML packages and the underlying Open XML schema elements within a package. The Open XML Application Programming Interface (API) encapsulates many common tasks that developers perform on Open XML packages, so you can perform complex operations with just a few lines of code,” the software giant added.

Microsoft has already used Open XML as the default file format of Office Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007, and will do the same with the next iteration of the Office System. Office 2010 is currently in development and planned for release in the first half of 2010.

Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office is available for download here.