Microsoft Office 2007 to Support ODF - But Not OOXML

Andy Updegrove writes "About two hours ago, Microsoft announced that it will update Office 2007 to natively support ODF 1.1, but not to implement its own OOXML format. Not until Office 14 is released (no date given so far for that) will anyone be able to buy an OOXML ISO-compliant version. Why will Microsoft do this after so many years of refusal? Perhaps because the only way it can deliver a product to government customers that meets an ISO/IEC document format standard is by finally taking the plunge, and supporting 'that other format.' Still, many questions remain, such as when this upgrade will actually be released, how good a job it will do, and whether the API Microsoft has said it will make available to permit developers to supply 'save to ODF' default plugins will be supported by a patent non-assertion promise allowing implementations under the GPL (the upgrade supplied by Microsoft will not allow ODF as the default setting)."

Comments

Re:Larger question

[Nahor]

• Will ODF spreadsheets be functionally equivalent to CSV?
• Will ODF text be functionally equivalent to plain-text ASCII with line breaks?
• WIll ODF presentations be JPEG renderings?
• Will ODF import and export take hours?
• etc.

No:

• Loading an ODF spreadsheet will crash Office.
• Loading an ODF text will crash Office.
• Loading an ODF presentation will crash Office.
• Loading an ODF import and export will crash Office.
• etc.

That way, they can share the code between the different apps. That's also why they can release ODF before OOXML

Microsoft's converter

[overshoot]

Microsoft has already supported a ODF extension for Office 2007. Full import and export, and also a command-line batch converter. It's a SourceForge project with a very liberal license (search for odf-converter). Microsoft didn't develop it directly but sponsored (paid for) the development, and assisted with the OOXML side of things.

We've heard of it, and apparently unlike you know that it's a very partial conversion with stunningly bad performance.

Not useful.