The Open Document Add-in for Microsoft Office

WORD HELPER

Article from Issue 75/2007
Author(s):

With a little help from the ODF plugin, Microsoft Office can open up documents saved in the free Open Document format. A short test reveals just how well it works.

If you've worked with Microsoft Office, you may know that Office XP fails to correctly open documents created with Office 2000. The vendor does not focus on continuity – at least not with respect to Office document formats – which has been a lucrative strategy so far. An enterprise looking to upgrade to a new Office version must update every machine. Furthermore, companies that exchange documents would need the same version. This is irritating and expensive in the long run, as many public offices have recently discovered. The Belgian government and many US states that were previously loyal Microsoft customers recently announced that in the future they would only use programs that support open standard formats. Meanwhile, Microsoft claims it will be introducing its own open document standard in Office 2007 – OpenXML.

Buy this article as PDF

Download Article PDF now with Express Checkout
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subscriptions
Digital Subscriptions

Related content

  • New ODF Plugins for Microsoft Office

    Version 1.1 of Sun Microsystems' ODF Plugin for Microsoft’s Office suite now includes a multi-language package. A new version of the OpenXML-ODF Translator is now available for downloading from Sourceforge.

    more »
  • Microsoft Documents ODF Implementation in Office 2007

    With the “Implementation Notes”, Microsoft has published documents recording the integration of Open Document Format (ODF) 1.1 into its Office 2007 package.

    more »
  • Linux Foundation Recommends Say "No" to OpenXML

    The Linux Foundation has taken a clear position on the acceptance of Microsoft's OpenXML format as an international ISO standard. The Foundation recommends that standardization committees in the countries involved in the process say "No" to the application.

    more »
  • OpenDocument Intro^

    OpenDocument format offers a new approach to data storage and document exchange for office applications. But what does ODF mean for the user? What’s inside an ODF file? How portable is ODF? We examine these questions in this month’s cover story.

    more »
  • Microsoft makes Office document formats more accessible

    Microsoft has announced it wants to simplify access to technical documentation for older Office formats, and initiate an open-source project to replicate the binary formats in Open XML.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Mobile Programming Security Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source