Slashdot Mirror
Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats On Oct. 1
An anonymous reader writes "Google today announced a huge change for Google Apps, including its Business, Education, and Government editions. As of October 1, users will no longer have the ability to download documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in old Microsoft Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt)." The perils of cloud computing; LibreOffice will probably be the best conversion utility at that point. Apropos: Reader akumpf writes with an essay about the dangers of letting our data and our tools be hosted by the same provider.
I make it a habit of installing the free compatibility pack on my office 2003 installations to open docx and similar "new gen" documents. Works like a charm on the majority of documents.
We used it at work because so many of our customers could read what we created. By requiring the strange .XML.ZIP format from Microsoft that isn't widely supported, we, like most people, will have to switch to another product if we want other people to be able to open our documents.
Are you or your customers still running Office 97?
Every version of MS Office from 2000 onward supports the new XML formats if the Compatibility Pack is installed. And if you've been interacting with anyone who uses Office 2007 or above, you will probably already have been receiving documents in these formats, since that is what newer versions of Office default to when you save.
The problem is not the drop, is the time-frame. like i wrote below
The problem is they announce a functionality drop 1st October on the 26th of September.
Have you ever used Google Docs?
There is no such concept as "create documents in MS Office formats" in Google Docs; your sentence doesn't make any sense. You create a document or a spreadsheet, give it a name and that's it - exactly how or where it's saved isn't something you as the user worry about.
It only becomes necessary to worry about it when you need to get the document out of Google Docs and give it to someone else.
This isn't necessarily the end of the world because, as Google have pointed out, there is a compatibility pack available from Microsoft which allows older versions of Office to open .docx files.
There is, however, one minor issue which appears to have entirely gone over Google's head. The only time anyone's likely to use this export facility is when you're sending the document to someone outside your company and whose computers you have precisely zero control or influence over. If they don't have the compatibility pack installed, the generally accepted polite thing to do is re-send in a format they can open. It is not to ask to speak to their IT department and tell those guys how to do their job.