Why OpenOffice.org? Open Document Formats

Jem Berkes writes "In this current article about OpenOffice.org (also covered at Linux Today), I try to make a point about OpenOffice's commitment to open document formats and interchange as the strongest selling point - never mind cost. The OOo developers are putting a lot of effort into their XML format; will this pay off, and will users notice the significance of OpenDocument/OASIS document formats?" This can't be said enough: file formats are what determine whether and how easily data is portable, or whether the user is just stuck.

Comments

Re:Formatting Woes

[The_Dougster]

Nice troll.

You are right non Office products don't always write proper Office compatible documents. Thats why I just use MS Office. Atleast I am assured that everybody can read my documents.

If you send somebody a Word document you must have a hole in your head. Firstly, they are amateurish. Secondly, every version of Word will change the margins and screw up the appearance of your document. And finally, anybody can easily modify your document and make it look like you wrote something which you really didn't.

If I want to make something easy to read and portable, I use HTML, or if it is an official type document, then I use PDF. I only use internal word processor files for my archives, and I refuse to send anybody a Word doc file ever.