Content

• Steps
• Advice

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language - Extensible Markup Language. The HTML standard is the version of XML used to create web pages in a browser. The advantage of XML is that we can use any tag we want and arrange it any way. Many different document formats rely on XML standards, such as the DOCX file used by Microsoft Word. XML files can be viewed easily across browsers, but each browser processes XML data differently. You can open XML files stored on web pages or browse them on your computer.

Steps

Method 1 of 2: Open the XML file in the browser

1. 

   Open Firefox, Chrome or Safari.

2. 

   
   
   Open the XML file. Click the URL of the XML file or click the XML file, drag and drop it into a new browser window.

3. 

   View XML file. The XML tags will be purple in color, while the XML data will show up as plain text. On Chrome and Safari browsers, click the arrow marks to collapse or expand the set of tags. For Firefox, you click the - or + sign to collapse or expand the tabs.

4. 

   
   
   Save the XML file. If you are viewing an XML file on a web page and want to save it, click the File menu, and then click Save. Select where you want to save the XML file, then click Save. advertisement

Method 2 of 2: View and edit XML files on Windows computer

1. 

   Download XML Notepad. XML Notepad is an XML file viewer and editor released by the Microsoft company. You can download a downloadable or standalone installer at https://xmlnotepad.codeplex.com. Links are in the Project Description section.
   • If you use Mac OS X, TextWrangler is a free text editor that highlights the formatting of tags in XML files to make editing easier.

2. 

   
   
   Install XML Notepad. Open the downloaded Notepad XML installation file and follow the setup instructions to install the program.

3. 

   Open the XML file with Notepad XML. Open Notepad XML. Click the File menu and then click Open. Find the XML file on your computer and select Open.

4. 

   View XML files in tree view. Tree View separates XML tags in the left-hand sidebar. Click the Tree View tab, then click a tab to display the text within it.

5. 

   View the XML file in XSL Output mode. XSL Output mode displays the XML file as if it were viewed in a browser.

6. 

   Edit XML file. Edit the XML file as a text file. XML Notepad software has many features for working with XML files. advertisement

Advice

• Occasionally, the XML file can get corrupted. In this case, you will receive an error message from your browser. You should download the file, then open it with an XML editor.
• If you receive attachments that are likely to be office documents (sender attaches a group of files, some of which have a.doc extension and some others have.xml) you just need to edit the extension. file extensions and use the Office software to open them.