Thin chemical vapor deposition (CVD) films of textured diamond (100) and (110) were compared with natural diamond, tetrahedral amorphous carbon, and highly oriented pyrolytic graphite using x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the C 1s absorption edge. Analysis of the intensity ratios of the C 1s --> pi* and the C 1s --> sigma* transitions gives a sp(2)/sp(3) ratio of nearly 15% and 40% in the pretempered CVD C(100) and CVD C(110) samples, respectively. The textured samples were exposed to different hydrogen-hot filament treatments for in situ cleaning and for preparing hydrogen-saturated surfaces. After a severe H-2 hot filament treatment of the CVD C(110) surface a new peak appears at 286.0 eV, 0.6 eV above the graphite C 1s --> pi* transition indicating a new hydrocarbon surface compound.