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Saving in OOXML Format Now Probably A Bad Idea
orlando writes "Much drama is unfolding prior to the OOXML Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva, currently schedule for the end of February. After that there's a subsequent 30 day period while countries can still change their vote. As a result, Bob Sutor is recommending that saving your documents in OOXML format right now is probably about the riskiest thing you can do, if you are concerned with long term interoperability. At this point nobody has the vaguest idea what OOXML will look like in February, or even whether it will be in any sort of stable condition by the end of March. 'While we are talking about interoperability, who else do you think is going to provide long term complete support for this already-dead OOXML format that Microsoft Office 2007 uses today? Interoperability means that other applications can process the files fully and not just products from Microsoft. I would even go so far as to go back to those few OOXML files you have already created and create .doc, .ppt, and .xls versions of them for future use, if you want to make sure you can read them and you don't want to commit yourself to Microsoft's products for the rest of their lives.'"
There's nothing to worry about. Microsoft will NOT be making any changes to the OOXML format. They will listen to all the suggestions/complaints, nod their heads and ignore them. The format will be passed, unchanged.
Microsoft won't actually use whatever becomes standardized. They'll add a strict output mode toggle that meets those requirements burried somewhere in their user interface. That way they can claim OOXML is a standard and they support it to keep the ignorant bean counters happy. However what everyone actually reads and writes by default will be whatever Office 2007 currently outputs (until OOo supports it 95%, and then it will be time for Office 2010.)
It's a bad idea anyway, regardless of your future data needs. I've already received a handful of .docx files in my job and have had to email the person back, asking them to save as an alternate format. And inevitably the response is "Oh right, I always forget that not everyone can open these files."
Microsoft's done a crappy job introducing a crappy format, and only people on the latest office (or the ability to install the Windows-oriented Windows-installer for old Office for Windows) can even work with the files.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Of course we have, it's the only type of porn that can be viewed without a GUI.
No matter what is in the published specification ... the ONLY implementation of OOXML that will matter will be the "de facto" standard that is whatever Microsoft is shipping at that moment.
... but if you aren't 100% compliant with what Microsoft apps produce, your product is not an option.
You can be 100% compliant with the published spec
...only people on the latest office (or the ability to install the Windows-oriented Windows-installer for old Office for Windows) can even work with the files
no, you can download the word viewer to view those files. You do not need to purchase anything to view them. However unless I know the person has windows I'd probably send a PDF instead.
Not to mention that the various kinds of .doc are often problematic, when one party has a newer version of office (and has saved in said format) while the other party has not upgraded.
The 'classics' are always best, anyway--because, frankly, if you need more formatting than some basic markup that would be covered by rtf or html, you ought be using something aimed more towards desktop publishing than word processing--and for that, you can use TeX or something.
These fancy-schmancy formats are just feature creep, really, in my opinion. If you need clip art to say it, then perhaps you don't need to say it at all.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
In all seriousness, though, this is a bit of a sticky wicket. Not that it'll affect microsoft; but trying to introduce a nonstandard implementation of a standard that is still in considerable flux is a rather gutsy move. Particularly if you are doing so while insisting on the cardinal importance of backwards compatibility and so on.
What would you do if a terrorist bombed Microsoft headquarters tomorrow?
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Wish that I had shorted Microsoft stock, and look for the price of Apple to go up.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
I don't recall any dire warnings that we should avoid saving in ODF at the late stages of its journey through the standardization process. Why is it suddenly an issue for OOXML?
I agree ascii porn is not good enough to achieve "gui" - I guess that's what the kids are calling it these days.
Untrue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fbdev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVGALib
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectFB
Cause some people still like using their own funny looking character sets.
"What would you do if a terrorist bombed Microsoft headquarters tomorrow?"
???
Profit?
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Apart from the OS, of course.
I wouldn't suddenly stop using the software on my PC, and would be able to export or save in any format I wish, or continue using the same software. There is no situation where things stop dead in their tracks. I don't think this is a bad idea because traditionally, there hasn't exactly been a problem with .doc and .xls formats that have been proprietary and the same since 97.
I don't think it's a bad idea because I don't see any dangers of being stuck by surprise. Let's say something happens and a whole slew of folks are using these formats. Suddenly there's a market for working with OOXML, or whatever format is in question. It's solvable, there's nothing scary or end of the world here. There's not even anything too stressful involved.
Besides, let's say MS really wants OOXML to fly. They continue to doggedly push it, and they have the inertia to make it stick, regardless of what industry experts/influencers want. Good for them. Nothing says the world has to be governed by standards bodies.
"What is the most-linked image in
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
..when I booted my new laptop running Vista and MS Word 2007 started to save my docs with a suspicious looking new '.sucx' extension.
.sucx docs - with all kinds of embedded attachments - you're telling me I should start thinking about going through 'em all and convert them *back* to the .doc?!
Foolishly I didn't take the time (nor had I the inclination) to investigate the implication of this change and I assumed it was just another completely unnecessary m$oft 'enhancement' designed to (i) annoy me (ii) make it harder for 'lesser mortals' to migrate their platform.
Yep, I know: what a naïve, conceited, presumptuous fuckwad, etc. etc.
At the time I had intended to - and have since - started dual-booting Linux K/ubuntu, on a separate partition, and so I didn't think that adopting Bill's new file format was something I should be at all concerned about...
And now that I've accumulated a truck stop full of
OMFG WTF USOBs. S.O.S. nearest Borg - please take me away from this place
"He Who Dares Wins"
And there was much rejoicing.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Seriously, can't we block these IP's already? I mean this is happening in ever story...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
Correct, but I'd rather teach people to use a format other people can readily use rather than require recipients to jump through hoops.
.doc may be proprietary but at least it meets the conveniently readable threshold, nearly any office software can handle .doc adequately.
.doc files for most inter-business communication. PDF is a lot more sensible in most (but not all) circumstances.
.dat attachments, because the sender is using outlook rich text format instead of plaintext or html. Sure I and all the other recipients *could* download a .dat file viewer, they do exist... but I shouldn't have to. The sender should be instructed to use formats that are compatible, especially when sending to recipients outside his organization.
The burden of sending a conveniently readable file lies with the sender.
That said, I personally don't recommend sending
This who debate is like the those stupid outlook emails with
I've started getting OOXML (docx) Word documents, which I've found take forever to convert using MS' own builting converter (2007 to 2003) and that the conversion frequently jacks-up the formatting, which doesn't bother me, but makes collabaration difficult, and I have to re-format the documents if we're in a crunch since my project lead is anal about asthetic things like that.
<rant>If it were up to me, I'd do reports in plaintext (or if necessary, PDF)</rant>
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
A comment on tagging:
"whatcouldpossiblygowrong" is pretty entertaining when used sparingly, like maybe on a story about a new robotic dentist. But when we are talking about document formats, I think it starts to lose that special something.
To reduce the (probably intended) market confusion over the pedigree of the format names, it would be nice if people used "MS-OOXML" to differentiate it from ODF and OpenOffice.
[repost]
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Check my alibi!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You can be 100% compliant with the published spec ... but if you aren't 100% compliant with what Microsoft apps produce, your product is not an option.
.doc formats exceptionally well. The barrier to conversion to OOo was damned low. So, it was time to introduce another incompatible document format, which is what they have always done when the competition gets too hot.
You don't think Microsoft *planned* it this way, did you?
The *only* reason Microsoft purchased... I mean, went through the IEEE standardization process was to fast-track to ISO. This is because places like Massachusetts were pondering passing resolutions that would require certain government agencies (in the case of Mass, the executive branch) to publish documents in a standard, open format. Microsoft, of course, fought that with money, lobbying, and disinformation (Microsoft's best weapons).
By getting a rubber-stamp standard, Microsoft can continue doing exactly what they do now: locking in customers by creating the perception that theirs is the only office suite that can handle the "standard" correctly, making the other suites look inferior (despite the actual compliance of the other suites).
Notice the timing of OOXML-- it happened just as OOo was beginning to render
I don't know why Microsoft doesn't believe they can compete on merit alone. They almost *always* resort to market manipulation to maintain the upper hand. It'd be funny, if they weren't teabagging capitalism in the process.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
MS is going to try and force the issue with money, and sheer weight of numbers.
All together now: "MICROSOFT - BECAUSE IT'S THERE."
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Look at it this way, CEOs are always going to want some sort of format they can put extraneous clipart and other useless eye candy into, so they'll never accept plain text. The advantage to xml, is when you get something from them, you can just s/<[^>]+/\n/g and get a semi-legible file out of the other end no matter what document viewer you use. Even better, you can find the XMLish equivalent of paragraph and header tags and use XSLT to strip everything but those.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Sutor is correct that it's quite possible that the OOXML that comes out of ISO will not be compatible with the OOXML that Office currently saves. But do keep in mind that Sutor works for IBM and has long been a vocal opponent of OOXML.
If you're going to reply to this crap, could you please at least take out the N-word in the subject?
Thanks!
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Maybe you should send them files in .odt format, and when the inevitable reply comes back, saying that their latest and greatest version of word 2007 cannot open it, say "Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting, not everyone is using OpenOffice." Then email them the link to OpenOffice's download section ;)
-- Fuck Beta
They can't make an operating system; what makes anyone think they can make a standard file format for the ages?
expandfairuse.org
Sadly, it doesn't matter all that much what ISO has to say, since MS Office is the standard application choice in business. What ever it uses will continue to be the defacto "standard". Therefore Microsoft gets to set the standard for document formats. I'm not happy with this at all, but it's a fact of life I'm learning (aka being forced) to live with.
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
Except that the current iteration of OOXML in Microsoft Office is not the OOXML that they submitted and changed throughout the ISO process. They implemented the 'old' OOXML and in the mean time they have deprecated lots of proprietary features that Office is actually using because nobody but Microsoft can implement those features (RenderLikeWord97 comes to mind).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Thanks, but I'm way ahead of you on this one.
What would you do if a terrorist bombed Microsoft headquarters tomorrow?
Um, nothing different, because the software I have will continue to work, and MS does have their source code backed up offsite.
Here's my serious & naive questions: Is Microsoft really under any obligation to follow a standard? Playing devil's advocate here, Microsoft can pretty much do whatever they want. They dominate the market, whatever format they see fit to save their documents in is what they'll do. They've always used their market share to get their own way, why would this one be any different? I'm already getting "how do I open this .docx" document?" questions, as are many others I'm sure. It's just another way for Microsoft to get people to buy their software. If the format was open & shared it could erode their market share.. eventually, maybe. Why would they possibly adopt an open standard?
Well at the very least Slashdot could use decent CAPTCHAs. For a technology site it's pretty dumb of them to be using dictionary words.
Correct, but I'd rather teach people to use a format other people can readily use rather than require recipients to jump through hoops.
I know, I can't expect people to have a PDF reader on their workstation already. I just give them something that works.
When the document specification is revised, the XML schema should also change. Older documents will then still be readable because an application has to use the older (non OSI approved) XML schema.
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Fear mongering on Slashdot again? I am all for standards but when it comes to thinks like file support, it doesn't really matter all that much. OOXML is here and it will be around a while. And in 10 years when you are trying to open your old files, there will still be filters to open OOXML files, just like we can still open a whole host of old and obscure file formats. Why in the world go through the trouble of converting all of your files already created using OOXML?
For myself, I'm a pretty savvy computer user. I've been on them for a while and know their ins and outs better than even most Slashdotters (no, not better than YOU, of course!) I like standards and support them, moreso with web standards than file formats. I don't really care what file format I use so long as it works. My office product of choice is Office 2007. I happen to like it a lot and I could care less how it saves its files. I know that 5, 10, 20 years from now I would still be able to open the files, though I have no idea why I would want to.
I love my sig.
I'm guessing it's gonna look pretty similar to the current version. What does the guy expect, a complete re-write from a company that isn't known for making concessions and has the market share to mostly get their way?
No matter how many and how significant the changes made to OOXML as M$ forces it through the standards bodies, the situation then will be no different than now - OOXML is not yet supported by many applications, not many people are using it just yet, anyone on MS Office will be able to open it, there will be a spattering of converters out there for those that can be bothered to get hold of it.
To use the phrase "the riskiest thing you can do" (highlighted in bold in the centre of the page, no less) in reference to a format that - no matter how proprietary - consists of XML files and a zip container is basically just pathetic. Having no patience for FUD, I wonder if Sutor realises that posts like this simply inspire the hope (against my better instincts) that M$ get their way soon so I can stop reading pathetic whiney shite like this.
This who debate is like the those stupid outlook emails with .dat attachments, because the sender is using outlook rich text format instead of plaintext or html.
.dat, as far as I know -- and if it did, IT would never install it anyway!).
Not to mention those users that are on networks that simply strip attachments (under the guise of "any files you work with should be accessed via a backed-up server, not email," which is worthwhile) or using crappy netware Groupwise (which doesn't support
It's incredible how many people don't realize that just because you're using fancy markup, everyone else will see it the same way. They probably think all those unformatted emails they get are from "boring people" who don't "understand the web."
Just received a Resume for a C Developer position, in docx format. Pity we can't open it.
The advertisement also specifically said that job applicants will only be contacted if they make the short list
why? seriously?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I can't tell you how many times I've replied and as I clicked submit I realized that I didn't change the subject... Now I have this stupid subject in my posting history from no until eternity... Great...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
That's fine for your documents that you are using currently. But extrapolate this for a large company with thousands-millions of documents and the scale of the problem become apparent. Or consider the disks that I have in my small office with Multi-mate spreadsheets or even 1-2-3. Sure *I* can open them if I try hard enough, but what about everyone else in my office? Think bigger. Document-format-lock-in is a really anti-competitive practice that needs to go away.
These are only my personal preferences, but I'll try to justify them:
1. Leaving the offensive word in the subject further publicizes the troll's message.
2. The word in and of itself is upsetting to many people.
I am not generally a 'PC' person, but I feel it's a good idea to obscure the offensive word in the subject, especially since [i]the poster them self was offended by the troll.[/i]
Of course, opinions differ on most anything.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Eh. We all make mistakes. Look at my italic tags above, which don't work on this forum. I need to use 'preview' each time.
Perhaps our foibles may enrich others.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
http://noooxml.org/
You save something in OOXML today. The standard gets re-written in February. Now Microsoft has a problem. Everybody running Office 2007 is saving in a non-standard-conformant format. What to do?
Windows Update to the rescue! So MS pushes out an update that patches Office. Now it saves in the real format, the one that came out of the February meeting...
But now nobody's saved stuff can be read back in.
But hey, that's all just hypothetical. Microsoft wouldn't be that stupid...
Would they?
Somebody - that people would trust to not be sending around viruses (Sun?, Google?) - ought to write a tiny downloadable app that will change your default format in Office 2007 back to .doc. Seriously, this .docx default is causing a lot of people problems, and not just ODF fans. You'd be surprised how many people can't figure out how to change the default. And without MS0 2007 as a reference, I can't walk some of the more literal users that end up asking through finding it in the entirely new menu system I've never seen (click File, click Print,... where's File?).
A nice little web link on google.com ("Are your friends complaining about not being able to open your Word 2007 documents? Fix it here") would do the trick.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Proclaim loudly to anyone who would listen that the Bush Administration knew the attack was coming for at least a year in advance; produce some documents of questionable authenticity purporting to be a communication between CIA Director Hayden and the White House discussing an "Operation Chairtoss;" speculate wildly on the identity of the individual mentioned in said document and referred to only by the mysterious handle "12th Monkey Boy;" then begin a 16-city book signing tour as sales of my expose reached #4 on the 'New York Times' best-seller list.
* * * * *
The preceding poster is a wholly owned subsidiary of the the Mitsubishi Corporation and his post may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the consent of Major League Baseball.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Naggers are a bad idea?
Unfortunately IP-based blocking is *hopelessly* flawed for many reasons (dynamic IPs, transparent proxies etc.) ... in some cases significant percentages of entire countries are routed through clusters of transparent proxies (and the headers behind that to determine 'actual' IP are not necessarily reliable, plus could contain private IPs etc.). There seems to be little one can really do about this kind of thing, short of modding the trolls down as quickly as possible into oblivion, and giving them as little attention as possible.
It was ECMA they went through, not IEEE.
(I am an IEEE member.)
What?!! Not supported anymore, you say?
Oh crap!
Have gnu, will travel.
Since we're not going to run out of idiots anytime soon, they will use the word just because it is perceived as offensive. The only solution is to stop being offended by it.
The only way you can be offended by somebody (you or not) being called a nigger is if you yourself think that being a nigger is bad. Once you realize this, it's not an insult anymore. Heck, it's often used as a term of pride (that's bad too).
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Just respond with a document with content-type: application/x-troff.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
You're plain retarded. Let's use ascii art, too, and stop using those stupid JPGs.
...the safest option. :-)
You mean the kind of large company that would standardize on the software they write and read said documents in?
.docx files, than we were with Word 97 .doc, and we may just be better off. Calling it Dead is a might bit premature.
.doc extension could be from any bloody program, in any bloody format; .docx only has the one.
Or the kind of small company who has *always* had to support multiple document formats (internally and externally) because they couldn't/wouldn't standardize on software?
And if there comes a time where you need to re-save all these "dead" MS-OOXML in a living format, then it's as simple as hiring an intern for 10 minutes to write a vb program that will batch convert them all. Is ALL big enough for you?
We're always going to have "Document-Lock-In" to some degree. No matter how much you try, or how clever you're being, you cannot anticipate every possible future document feature one group or another will want to implement in their programs... it's just like project forking: the whole basis of Open Source. One company gets an idea on how to make the document format better, or how to implement a new feature they thought of, so they create their own verison of OOXML document, which now becomes incompatible with previous versions of that document. Future-proofing a file-format is an uphill battle.
The point is that we're not any worse off now with Word '07
Just on the surface of things:
* A
* Any other program that currently supports the Word'97 format has has to reverse engineer it; even with half-assed standards documentation, that's a good deal half ass more than we had with Word'97.
It's not true :
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12558-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=43385&messageID=803908
Jeremy.
'Nobody cares about the file format that their office app saves stuff in except the Slashdot Crowd. ' Wrong. People working in industries that have to conform to Records Management Acts, Privacy acts ... 'Insert Legislation name here' have to be concerned with file formats and the ability to retrieve and read in the future.
You Sir 'Anonymous Coward' are a Troll and should bugger off.
MS-OOXML is a bad idea. Get it....!!
To secure peace is to prepare for war
well said my friend. beat me to it.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
word of advice: save your offense for words directed at you at the very least
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The happy dance
To secure peace is to prepare for war
Ok, I've read at a list a bit of the OOXML spec. I have also read the ODF spec. What I have to say is that, while OOXML appears to "over-represent" the objects by saying in 50 words what ODF can say in 30, the spec itself appears to be sufficient enough.
The only problem I see with OOXML is that Microsoft, instead of just implementing the standard in Word 2007, should also produce filters for Word 2003, Abiword, and KWord.
What I also find more than a little disconcerting is, noone from the open source community appears to have bothered to suggest the most obvious solution to many of these file format problems. If applications can support ODF, and the same applications can support ODF metadata, and there is an ODF import/export filter for Word, then wouldn't it make sense to abstract the document creating interfaces used by the ODF importers on all these platforms to make it possible to write a single API across all word processors?
I mean seriously... I can't for the life of me imagine how, if all the word processors actually support a single standard format (ODF), then a document loading API couldn't be made and wrapped for each application. The best part of this solution is that it would allow other application developers to be able to read all the files as part of their application without actually having to install a word processor to do it.
But even if it does get accepted as a standard then I bet the free (at least as in beer, hopefully as in speech) tools would be along smartish.
I would rather the developers of those tools spend their time writing their own stuff, pushing forward their interesting ideas, instead of spending all that effort making the world interoperable with Microsoft.
Microsoft has been good at forcing this catch-up game for years. It does not have to be this way anymore.
For which app do we have thousands of copies of the source code stored around the globe?
If you have the source, you can get it to work again in the future. If you don't then there's no guarantee that the app will exist, no matter how popular it is today. Source availability is a much better indicator for longevity than current popularity is. Nobody can take ooo away. Microsoft can take Word away whenever they want (or if they go out of business).
And since most can't handle the new crappy format, I just save everything I'm going to email or post on the web as pdf, that way no matter what people are using they should be able to read it. It's funny that I have far fewer compatibility issues with open office, which is FREE, unlike the expensive office suite that can't open files from it's predecessor correctly.
I know microsoft is teh devil.
.swx. Also a lost format that didn't open in any programs outside of OpenOffice (and one other document application that I can't remember right now).
.docx though with imperfect results). From a pragmatists perspective sometimes formats fail, it looks like .docx will be one of them...
.pdf not ntfs). In this case its really a question of ideology, so let's not go insane about technical problems that were present in an OSS product as well, we're bigger than that.
But from a pragmatic point of view I don't think that the OSS community can ignore
Now Microsoft could have supported it, there could be a plugin for support (as there can be with
Now I like open source, but that perspective has always been a product of its superior interoperability and user moddability. Both of these are lacking only slightly (think
Yes you should purchase windows to use windows...