ODF Offers MS Word Plugin to MA 263
Goalie_Ca writes "Groklaw just posted that the OpenDocument Foundation is offering Massachusetts a plugin that could 'allow Microsoft Office to easily open, render, and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between Microsoft's binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF ... The testing has been extensive and thorough. As far as we can tell there isn't a problem, even with Accessibility add ons, which as you know is a major concern for Massachusetts.'"
Sounds great... (Score:5, Interesting)
At the same time though... this does conceivably give more power to Redmond as there is now less incentive for MA to leave the Windows/Office platform.
Let me see.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This foundation has decided to do so.
Kudos to them. They just proved that there is none of that so-called vendor lock-in.
Sure, it takes effort, but if you can be bothered to do it, it pays off.
Re:Heh.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Opensource creeping in like this is not a bad thing. I know if I hadn't spotted Gaim and firebird some years ago, I might have not moved to Linux.
Yeah but WHICH VERSION of office? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sounds great... (Score:3, Interesting)
Open documents good (Score:4, Interesting)
Currently my office runs on M$ Office 2k3. We could easily switch to OpenOffice save one luser who creates every one of his spreadsheets using M$ specific formatting that throws the OO conversion tool for a loop. I would switch the rest of us but we all have to be able to access his documents as he is the shop manager and he gets cranky when people don't read his crap. Had I been here when the network was set up in the first place this would be a M$ free shop as Linux has all of the tools these lusers need in a default workstation install. So I am going to sit here patiently waiting to move everyone to Linux immediately after we can get ODF translations for all of his crap. At least I can move the website to a Slack server soon (after I weed out the useless ASP code). IIS is killing me
I am Microsoft Certified, which is why I use Linux.
Is there a blurb that one can post in the office? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hi,
I work in a fairly technical group, but many of my colleagues are quite ignorant about the problems of using proprietary standards (e.g., office) in their day-to-day life. When Firefox was released, I put up the copy of the New York times ad in the lounge and people noticed. I wondered if there is a similar blurb for ODF (or OpenOffice). Now seems to be the ideal time to make people aware of the choice and alternatives.
Is there a nice one-page (non-technical) write-up that clearly states why open standards (ODF) is better than closed standards controlled by evil monopolies (Microsoft's doc format)?
Aravind.
Re:Don't worry (Score:4, Interesting)
If MS wanted to, they could very easily have added such functionality to Word themselves. The fact that they haven't offered to do so highlights to importance they attach to keepinig people locked into *.doc and now OpenXML.
In some ways, this plugin might undermine OpenDocument since it might provide a way for MS to keep their foot in the door, which they will likely exploit to "convert" customers back to using proprietry formats.
However, I think that whilst it helps with using OpenDocument with MS Word, Excel is still a "killer app" that makes switching to competing office products difficult. There are a lot of companies that ship products that include Excel documents with macros as part of their product. Whilst these don't work with competing products (such as StarOffice/OpenOffice.org), then Excel retains the upper hand.
[going off on a tangent here...] it might be better to build an OpenOffice.org API wrapper for MS Office? That way, a company wanting to produce a spreadsheet with macro functionality, could create one for OOo, and use this [hypothetical] API wrapper to make the macros work with MS Office.
Or somthing!
(I'm thinking out loud here).