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Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Released, Supports ODF Out of the Box

Posted by timothy on from the file-formats-rule-the-world dept.

shutdown -p now writes "On April 28, Microsoft released service pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007. Among other changes, it includes the earlier-promised support for ODF text documents and spreadsheets, featured prominently on the 'Save As' menu alongside Office Open XML and the legacy Office 97-2007 formats. It is also possible to configure Office applications to use ODF as the default format for new documents. In addition, the service pack also includes 'Save as PDF' out of the box, and better Firefox support by SharePoint."

7 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot is turning into Windows Update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    IE8, Office 2007 SP2. Only difference is that it works in Firefox.

  2. Great by El+Lobo · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Office 2007 has been a very stable and good version from the start. At my department, in the university I work for, experienced users (like our two secretaries) had some difficulties at first re-learning the new user interface, before they, after some weeks realized what a great invention the ribbon is. Yes, you need to think different here. Forget menus and toolbars. The ribbon is a great thing when you understand that they are somehow like toolbars, but they are dynamic as well. When you realize how the thing work, then you cannot live without it.

    Now having PDF as a "native" option (and , as a minor option, odf as well) without installing extra software , this is a real winner. Good work.

    --
    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
  3. Re:Great by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It allows them into markets they were being shut out of in europe. Plus ATM they don't have much to worry about, openoffice is clearly lagging behind and the other OSS suits while strong in some areas are significantly lacking in other. Additionally due to the lack of innovation in office suites it's unlikely that a something will take them away from number #1 spot quickly and they are unlikely to be caught off guard like they were by firefox, if they start seeing a major competitor then they can go back to their old techniques.

    So while they opening themselves up to competition, they are so far ahead (in terms of market share and in some senses their product is also superior), that it's worth it in order to not get shut out of certain markets that require open documets.

    Its not like this is their first effort to open up there formats either, i think they contributed to apache POI used to stand for "Poor Obfuscation Implementation", but that's not mentioned on their website much anymore ;)) as well. There is also the iso that while not entirely open does force them to be somewhat more open.

    --
    IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
  4. Re:Great by DerekJ212 · · Score: 5, Funny

    .odfx

  5. Re:Great - but of course... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Damn, good thing OpenOffice doesn't do this with .doc files. Oh wait...

  6. Re:Great by Anpheus · · Score: 5, Informative

    From Wikipedia:

    "OpenDocument 1.2 is currently being written by the ODF TC. It is likely to include additional accessibility features, metadata enhancements, spreadsheet formula specification based on the OpenFormula work (ODF 1.0 and 1.1 did not specify spreadsheet formulae in detail, leaving many aspects implementation-defined) as well as on some suggestions submitted by the public. Originally OpenDocument 1.2 was expected to become an OASIS standard by October 2007 but later it was expected to become a final draft in May 2008 and an OASIS standard in 2009 and a new ISO/IEC version some months later.[13] However currently there is no final draft of ODF v1.2 yet."

    Short version: you don't deserve to be modded anything better than -1 Flamebait.

  7. Re:Great by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ironically, they did it precisely the other way - they've implemented the ODF spec to the letter, and ignored any conformance bugs in OpenOffice (and in pretty much all other existing ODF implementations, which tend to follow OpenOffice behavior). The result is that you will have problems moving ODF documents between MSOffice and OpenOffice, but Microsoft gets to point a blaming finger at OpenOffice guys if asked.

    I wonder, also, how it will affect any government tenders on Office suites. If one of the requirements is support for ODF, then Microsoft can just say that they're the only ones on the market with a fully compliant implementation, and point out flaws in OO.org...