Vendor Neutral File Formats?

timmyv asks: "I have recently been tasked with developing a corporate wide policy that will standardize all employee created documents on vendor neutral file formats. OASIS is good in theory, but I haven't been able to locate enough concrete examples of policies or implementation schemes that work at a corporate level. Does anyone work at a company where documents can only be saved as RTF, HTML, etc. or have any experience with this type of problem?"

Comments

I always try and use portable files

[The_Dougster]

Well, for CAD, its a screwed up world. The best/most portable format is probably IGES, except its such a huge specification that nobody's IGES file is compatible with anybody else's. I'm an engineer and for myself I use Turbocad 10 professional at home. It reads/writes AutoCAD files and numerous other formats, and is somewhere in between AutoCAD and Pro/Engineer in terms of its capabilities. You'll have a tough time convincing any corporation to use TurboCAD though.

For text documents, HTML would be good, except MS products tend to produce the most screwed up HTML files I've ever seen. All I can recommend is to use PDF files for important and official documents because they are essentially immutable and tend to produce consistent hardcopies from any computer.

OpenOffice formats are nice, and if I were starting up a new business I would of course set up Linux workstations to use OO exclusively, and put a Windows machine down in the IT room so the IT staff could convert any troublesome documents that come through the email.

For Visio, there is no equivalent, other than exporting the visio file as a DXF or maybe a WMF. Windows MetaFiles never seem to load right in other apps though so thats something to think about. SVG files will probably be the future here if Dia starts using them.