Dark Corners of the OpenXML Standard

Standard Disclaimer writes "Most here on Slashdot know that Microsoft released its OpenXML specification to counter ODF and to help preserve its market position, but most people probably aren't aware of all the interesting legacy code the OpenXML specification has brought to light. This article by Rob Weir details many of the crazy legacy features in the dark corners of OpenXML. As it concludes after analyzing specification requirements like suppressTopSpacingWP, 'so not only must an interoperable OOXML implementation first acquire and reverse-engineer a 14-year old version of Microsoft Word, it must also do the same thing with a 16-year old version of WordPerfect.'"

Comments

Re:MIcrosoft sucks.

[DavidShor]

Take a economics course before you shovel anarchic crap down our throats.

No bragging rights there.

[Erris]

OpenXML is Microsoft trying to translate its proprietary DOC file inside a XML container .... The good thing for Microsoft, is that they can pretend this limitation is "Not-a-bug-but-a-feature", and brag around that there are a lot of stuffs that MS-Word couldn't store inside an ODF and only OpenXML can carry.

Pretend is the operative word. Translation is supposed to happen when you import the crufty old crap. M$ may have an advantage there, but you won't find that ability in the 6000 pages of their spec. The only place you will really find 20 year binary history of M$ Word is in M$'s source code, which itself must be contradictory and crazy because it's not really compatible with itself and has never been a portable typesetting system. Basically, the extra material in M$XML is noise and stuff they will never use. That and stuff you use that's not described is exactly what you want to make sure no one else can implement it.

The real bragging rights go to those who manage to open those nasty old documents without all of the bloat. KWord will happily import most Word Perfect documents and save them as ODF. Open Office as good a job as Word does with the crazy formats. M$XML is yet another waste of time from DoS central.