Slashdot Mirror
ODF Offers MS Word Plugin to MA
Goalie_Ca writes "Groklaw just posted that the OpenDocument Foundation is offering Massachusetts a plugin that could 'allow Microsoft Office to easily open, render, and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between Microsoft's binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF ... The testing has been extensive and thorough. As far as we can tell there isn't a problem, even with Accessibility add ons, which as you know is a major concern for Massachusetts.'"
Sure there isn't the same victory for OSS in having them switch to OpenOffice as some would like, it instead shows that OSS can adapt as needed and allow the state to continue to use the same front end app and not have to deal with the cost and hassle of retraining countless workers with a new system.
At the same time though... this does conceivably give more power to Redmond as there is now less incentive for MA to leave the Windows/Office platform.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Microsoft built Word/Office with Plug-in support, did they not? In fact, they built their OS with every intention that other companies would offer services on their platform.
This foundation has decided to do so.
Kudos to them. They just proved that there is none of that so-called vendor lock-in.
Sure, it takes effort, but if you can be bothered to do it, it pays off.
Only now its us doing the embracing and extending! Just wait for phase three.
Opensource creeping in like this is not a bad thing. I know if I hadn't spotted Gaim and firebird some years ago, I might have not moved to Linux.
Office 97? Office XP? Office 2002? Office 2000? Office 2007? Forward-portable to future versions? I'm quite sure this is a good thing, but at the same time I'm quite sure it wont work well for many many MS Office users...
Currently my office runs on M$ Office 2k3. We could easily switch to OpenOffice save one luser who creates every one of his spreadsheets using M$ specific formatting that throws the OO conversion tool for a loop. I would switch the rest of us but we all have to be able to access his documents as he is the shop manager and he gets cranky when people don't read his crap. Had I been here when the network was set up in the first place this would be a M$ free shop as Linux has all of the tools these lusers need in a default workstation install. So I am going to sit here patiently waiting to move everyone to Linux immediately after we can get ODF translations for all of his crap. At least I can move the website to a Slack server soon (after I weed out the useless ASP code). IIS is killing me
I am Microsoft Certified, which is why I use Linux.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Hi,
I work in a fairly technical group, but many of my colleagues are quite ignorant about the problems of using proprietary standards (e.g., office) in their day-to-day life. When Firefox was released, I put up the copy of the New York times ad in the lounge and people noticed. I wondered if there is a similar blurb for ODF (or OpenOffice). Now seems to be the ideal time to make people aware of the choice and alternatives.
Is there a nice one-page (non-technical) write-up that clearly states why open standards (ODF) is better than closed standards controlled by evil monopolies (Microsoft's doc format)?
Aravind.
But ulitmately it [odf plugin for Word] undermines an important USP for MS Office, namely, compatibility with MS Word documents! Microsoft specifically do not want people to use an open format such as OpenDocument because if they do, it makes it easier from them [the customer] to switch to a competing product, such as StarOffice or OOo.
If MS wanted to, they could very easily have added such functionality to Word themselves. The fact that they haven't offered to do so highlights to importance they attach to keepinig people locked into *.doc and now OpenXML.
In some ways, this plugin might undermine OpenDocument since it might provide a way for MS to keep their foot in the door, which they will likely exploit to "convert" customers back to using proprietry formats.
However, I think that whilst it helps with using OpenDocument with MS Word, Excel is still a "killer app" that makes switching to competing office products difficult. There are a lot of companies that ship products that include Excel documents with macros as part of their product. Whilst these don't work with competing products (such as StarOffice/OpenOffice.org), then Excel retains the upper hand.
[going off on a tangent here...] it might be better to build an OpenOffice.org API wrapper for MS Office? That way, a company wanting to produce a spreadsheet with macro functionality, could create one for OOo, and use this [hypothetical] API wrapper to make the macros work with MS Office.
Or somthing!
(I'm thinking out loud here).