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Docvert 3.0 Lessens Reliance On Microsoft Office
An anonymous reader writes "After 10 months of development Docvert 3.0 was released today. This open source web service converts DOC files to Oasis OpenDocument 1.0, and then to HTML, RSS, or any XML format. Try the ODF demo or download the source and install it on your own box. Version 3.0 comes with an MS Word Plugin, FTP/WebDAV upload, and an in-browser document editor."
Ya, I'm on the edge of my seat. It will get adopted as a standard or it won't. Office will use it either way and anyone wanting to interoperate with Office will have to try to implement it as well.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Despite what Microsoft thinks and how they're been acting in the past with all their 'standards'; Describing all the exceptions doesn't make something a standard. Describing them in the context of a non-standardized environment, makes it even less so.
Although I'm quite sure that Microsoft really doesn't give a and will push this through as 'their' standard that everyone else will have to adhere to to be able to do anything with Mickyshaft generated content anyway.
Whether ISO approves of this or not is inconsequential, the only thing that matters is that M$ can now say: Look, we proposed a standard, it's not our fault 'they' think it's not good enough.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Microsoft isn't doing this for you silly! The whole intent is likely that it is *hard* for anyone to implement.
...Some people think its fine that way. A friend of mine, quite pro-ms, told me that all those little strange things in the specification where normal to have backwards compatibility, and that reading the specification was a waste of time. Instead, he directed me towards a preview of Ms office 2007. Because for him, as for many more, what's important is the final product, the cuteness of the buttons, the way it works and displays its own format. Why bother using a free program that displays word documents badly, when Office is already perfect huh? I feel so misunderstood sometimes. What makes me sad is that they don't see the use of a clear straight-to-the-point format. Maybe only geeks can be horrified by this one.
I wonder if you could get 60 people to review 100 pages each (or divide up chapters or sections in some logical manner). That may be feasible in 1 month. At least the glaring problems would be flagged. I have no idea how to organize this however.....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The second design requirement was that the spec be developed and released quickly, before ODF had time to gain much traction. Between these two objectives, it's hardly surprising that it ended up the way it did...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm shocked too, that someone using ad-hominem attacks would resort to anonymous posting. Amazing. This must be Slashdot.
The fact that Updegrove might have a vested interest in ODF succeeding doesn't detract from the OOXML proposed standard being a crock of shit.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
That is exactly what I thought at first as well!
/. blurb makes it clear that the "standard" as proposed is non-implementable.
And i wonder how you could. Even just reading the the
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
On the contrary, when taking the article at face value, I think that the whole intent is to make it *easy* for Microsoft to implement the first time, because it's already done. This is of course backwards from how a community standard should work, it should be an effort that is repeatable. Instead we have whatever crap their contractors turned in, with apparent flaws turned into requirements. I doubt even Microsoft could write a second compatible handler for this document format. Well, perhaps instead of "on the contrary" I should say "to clarify"; the standard appears to be designed so that any implementation but the original is near impossible.
It sounds like pretty much like business as usual for MSFT, although describing in 6,000 pages how hard it would be to create an interoperating product is new. Their format is the standard, even the flaws that they didn't fix before release.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
ODF has already been supported by several implementations, and some of these threw up some OpenOffice-isms; if the support had been finished before the standard had been finalised then this would have allowed them to be fixed.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Outside Office 2007, who would ever implement this "standard"?
That's the reason for all the "render like WordPerfect 5.x" options that people have complained about, because they have to allow people to convert to the XML format and then convert back without reducing the document to an unreadable mess.
There is no reason I know of why the XML format cannot support all the features of Word and round trip, without relying on nasty hacks like this, it just takes more work. The problem with "Open"XML that I've seen is the concentrate entirely on supporting only the features of .doc files and their interactions with other programs to the exclusion of anything else. Rather than "render like WP 5.x" you need to define how WP 5.x renders that feature, then incorporate it into your conversion script in a way that makes sense in general for documents.
The whole format is built upon the assumption that only MS and Word will be using it and it is not designed to abstract word processing documents in general, but to kowtow to the eccentricities of Word.
The alternative is to not support roundtripping and then wait for slashdot headlines like "Users find that the new Office XML format mangles their documents".
No, the alternative is to do it right and build hacks like the ones you mention into the import and export routines, rather than embedding them, without any definition, into the format.