As mentioned in the previous post Microsoft Office 2007 Service pack 2 (SP2) would include support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) and would be released 28th April and here it is – Microsoft Download. SP2 is a 290MB download so you do not want to be on a slow internet connection when you are getting it. Of course there are other features in SP2 but we are just looking at the ODF support. All features can be seen here.

From the Microsoft information page:

OpenDocument Format (ODF) support SP2 lets you open, edit, and save documents in version 1.1 of the ODF for Word) , for Excel , and for PowerPoint . Users of these Office programs can now open, edit, and save files in the OpenDocument Text (*.odt), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (*.ods), and OpenDocument Presentations (*.odp) formats.

What does this mean?

These means that users of software that users the OpenDocument Format  (OpenOffice.org, GoogleDocs and many other office applications) should be able to share, collaborate and edit documents with users of Microsoft Office (this has not be possible as standard before). This should be a very positive step forward in the adoption of Open Standards and should help the UK Government action plan.

New functionality will allow you to save and open documents in OpenDocument Format.

What are OpenDocument Formats (ODF)?

OpenDocument Format is the way an Office application like a word processor can save a document.  An example of a proprietary format is .doc which has been used for many years for Microsoft Word. The difference between .doc and ODF is that the  technical specification is freely available (from OASIS here) for anybody.  So anyone can implement ODF into their application.  Although there are more formats SP2 covers the format for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. The file formats extensions are as follows:

.odt for word processing (equivalent .doc in Word)
.ods for spreadsheets (equivalent .xls on Excel)
.odp for presentations (equivalent .ppt in PowerPoint)

Why are Open standards and Open Document Formats so important?

Open Documents are the best way to able to share and collaborate on documents across multiple systems and multiple platforms . If everybody is using the same open format it should not matter what software they are using (Microsft Office, OpenOffice, Google Docs etc) or even what operating system they are using (Windows, Mac, Linux etc). This is far better than everyone trying to use their own proprietary format and then having problems when trying to share documents. The second very important benefit is that it future profs our documents. In 50 years time when we find some electronic documents that we want to see they may be held in a proprietary format that we have no access to (maybe the company has long gone out of business or we simply have no rights to view the documents). If documents are held in an open format then, with the required skills, we should be able to see these documents easily again.

The Future

This is hopefully the start of a new era in open standards support by Microsoft which will be continued in the soon to be released Windows 7 and Office 10. Only time will tell.

Below A few screenshots on the ‘Save as’ option of Excel, Word and PowerPoint:

Excel ODF support

Word ODF support

Powerpoint ODF support

]]> http://outserveblog.com/2009/04/29/open-source/opendocument-format-support-in-microsoft-office-is-here/feed/ 2 http://outserveblog.com/2009/04/25/open-source/microsoft-office-supports-opendocument-format/ http://outserveblog.com/2009/04/25/open-source/microsoft-office-supports-opendocument-format/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:47:03 +0000 Phil Oakley http://outserveblog.com/?p=175

In many recent talks that Outserve has given we have spoken about Microsoft Office supporting the OpenDocument Format (ODF) in the upcoming release of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Microsoft Office.  Outserve see that the No.1 office suite, used by millions of people worldwide, supporting ODF is an essential step forward in the adoption of open standards (as supported by the UK Government). Up until this month the statement from Microsoft was that SP2 would be released in the first half of 2009 but now they have announced that SP2 will be released on April 28th.

As soon as the SP2 is released Outserve will install and test and put any feedback here on the Outserve Blog.

What may not be so widely known is that Windows 7 (the latest version of Windows which was available as a free beta) ships with a copy of WordPad that supports ODF as standard as the screenshot shows below:

This can only be seen as a positive step in the wider use of open formats and hopefully in Microsoft support for ODF.