I'm trying to export the content of these xml files to an excel file, and I did not succeed. What can I do?
Answer
The files containing EASA’s Easy Access Rules in XML format can be opened for visualization and used directly with many different tools, including:
- Microsoft Word (where it would appear as a normal Word document)
- any XML editor
- any text editor (like Notepad, WordPad) that is able to open large text files
Normally, it is also possible to open an XML file in Microsoft Excel, but if the XML file is very big, Excel will fail or generate errors. Microsoft has not currently published information about the exact size limit, and the complexity of the XML structure could also play a role.
This means that, for the files containing EASA’s Easy Access Rules in XML format, Microsoft Excel is not a recommended tool.
If your objective is to just have a look at the XML content, Notepad would be a readily available choice although the lack of XML syntax comprehension does not make it practical for understanding the structure. An XML editor would be more useful for that purpose.
Otherwise, if the objective is to be able to extract, process and use the content in other applications, we would recommend investigating the use of a processing software that could transform the export XML into exactly the format you need for your other applications.
The processing software could be, for example
- an XSLT parser using a customized XSLT transformation
- a custom made software written in your language of choice