How To: Write MPX files

Versions of Microsoft Project up to Project 98 could read and write MPX files as a data interchange format. Versions of Project after Project 98 until Project 2010 can only read MPX files. Versions of Microsoft Project after 2010 cannot read MPX files. Other third party project planning applications continue to use MPX as a data interchange format.

Writing MPX files

The sample code below illustrates how to write data to an MPX file.

JavaC#

package org.mpxj.howto.write;

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.writer.FileFormat;
import net.sf.mpxj.writer.UniversalProjectWriter;

public class MPX
{
    public void write(ProjectFile project, String fileName) throws Exception
    {
        new UniversalProjectWriter(FileFormat.MPX).write(project, fileName);
    }
}

using MPXJ.Net;

namespace MPXJ.Samples.HowToWrite;

public class MPX
{
    public void Write(ProjectFile project, string fileName)
    {
        new UniversalProjectWriter(FileFormat.MPX).Write(project, fileName);
    }
}

Using MPXWriter

If required, the MPXWriter class can be used directly, which provides access to additional options, as described below.

Locale

The MPX file format is actually locale specific, so in the example code below we can see that the writer is being asked to produce a file suitable for reading with a localized German version of Microsoft Project.

JavaC#

package org.mpxj.howto.write;

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.mpx.MPXWriter;

import java.util.Locale;

public class MPXLocale
{
    public void write(ProjectFile project, String fileName) throws Exception
    {
        MPXWriter writer = new MPXWriter();
        writer.setLocale(Locale.GERMAN);
        writer.write(project, fileName);
    }
}

using System.Globalization;
using MPXJ.Net;

namespace MPXJ.Samples.HowToWrite;

public class MPXLocale
{
    public void Write(ProjectFile project, string fileName)
    {
        var writer = new MPXWriter();
        writer.Culture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de");
        writer.Write(project, fileName);
    }
}

The locales supported by the MPX writer class can be retrieved using the following call:

JavaC#

MPXWriter.getSupportedLocales()

MPXWriter.SupportedCultures

Locale Defaults

By default the MPX writer ignores the date, time, number and currency formats specified in the project properties and instead uses the defaults from the specified locale. Calling the setUseLocaleDefaults method and passing false ensures that the information present in the project properties is used instead of the locale defaults. This is illustrated in the sample code below:

JavaC#

package org.mpxj.howto.write;

import net.sf.mpxj.ProjectFile;
import net.sf.mpxj.mpx.MPXWriter;

import java.util.Locale;

public class MPXLocaleDefaults
{
    public void write(ProjectFile project, String fileName) throws Exception
    {
        MPXWriter writer = new MPXWriter();
        writer.setLocale(Locale.GERMAN);
        writer.setUseLocaleDefaults(false);
        writer.write(project, fileName);
    }
}

using System.Globalization;
using MPXJ.Net;

namespace MPXJ.Samples.HowToWrite;

public class MPXLocaleDefaults
{
    public void Write(ProjectFile project, string fileName)
    {
        var writer = new MPXWriter();
        writer.Culture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("de");
        writer.UseCultureDefaults = false;
        writer.Write(project, fileName);
    }
}