Managed Preference - Dock issue

[#1]

Hi,

I am new to Casper and I am trying to setup a Managed Preference for "Add Application to Dock". Once I type the settings (like below) and assign to Profiles, it gets deployed to users preferences to com.apple.dock.plist as a gibberish.
Again, before deployment the settings the file com.apple.dock.plist looked as a normal XML file. After applying the settings the file is almost not readable.
First I thought that it happened because I used PC to type the settings but then I retyped everything on Mac and it didn't make the difference.

<array> <dict> <key>path</key> <string>/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Excel.app</string> <key>after</key> <string>end</string> </dict>
</array>

[#2]

Try running this command:
plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

[#3]

It's unnecessary. The binary plist format works just as well, except it's harder for you to read. All that command did was convert it back to XML.