Share via

Documentation for VML Drawing Files

Ashwin Kannan 0 Reputation points
2026-04-15T07:09:19.8066667+00:00

Hi there,

I have noticed that, when notes or threaded comments are added in an Excel file, their position information is written in a .vml file rather than the standard drawing.xml file. I have looked for the documentation but could not find it anywhere. If the documentation for VML exists, where can it be found?

Also, from the information I gathered, it seems that VML is considered as deprecated. If that is true, why does Excel still write the position information for notes and threaded comments in a .vml file?

Thanks in advance.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | Other | Other
0 comments

1 answer

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Xavier-D 8,585 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-04-16T00:35:26.69+00:00

    Hello Ashwin Kannan

    I can see that you are looking for documentation for VML

    Documentation for Excel .vml drawing files is available, although it is published under the Open XML / Open Specifications documentation rather than in a single Excel-specific article. Microsoft documents the VML Drawing Part in the Open Specifications for Office, and the related VML content is referenced in the Open XML standards documentation.

    Regarding why Excel still writes note or comment position information into a .vml file:

    • The published documentation shows that Microsoft still supports the VML Drawing Part in Office file formats, while newer threaded comments can work alongside older legacy comment structures. Because of that, it is still normal to see .vml parts in modern Excel workbooks.

    You can review a of the related the documentation here:

    Feel free reply back to this post if you have any questions or issue, I'll be happy to help.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.