Microsoft to support odf and pdf in Word

[kidslumber]

At last! Microsoft will support odf (Open Office, Libre Office) and pdf in Word.

http://www.zdnet.com/office-to-final...ts-7000002696/

and

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-offi...on-7000002689/

[teh603]

ODF is old news, and only partially supported; last time I checked re-saving an ODF would put it in a version of the format which only Word could open. Typical MS behavior, though- adopt someone else's format, add your own proprietary extensions to it, then see that the original format dies from lack of use.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by teh603

ODF is old news, and only partially supported; last time I checked re-saving an ODF would put it in a version of the format which only Word could open. Typical MS behavior, though- adopt someone else's format, add your own proprietary extensions to it, then see that the original format dies from lack of use.

I agree. Somehow my work computer (Windows 7, Office 2010) has developed a taste for saving documents in odf format dunno where it came from, maybe because I installed LibreOffice. Only problem is it tells me every time that it can't save in that format - in fact it is this message that makes me remember to change the file type to docx.

Editor's note: damned spill chuckers. I wrote 'saving documents in odf' and it was changed to 'off', and I wrote 'file type to docx' and it was changed to dock, and neither of them was noticed (by me) until later. <sigh>

[SeaKing]

Well, what do you think about the "PDF" use(support)?

[kidslumber]

The articles that I have linked to refer to Office 2013. It is that version that is supposed to fully support odf. :

[VydorScope]

So if it does... who cares? OO and LO already open doc.. so what do you gain?

[kidslumber]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

So if it does... who cares? OO and LO already open doc.. so what do you gain?

At the moment saving an odf file as a word document can result in less than perfect results. It's hard to criticize LO or OO because they are using an open standard to match a proprietary format. But if MS is serious, it should be able to perfectly import an open standard document into their proprietary format.

For authors who are required to supply a Word document, but only have OO or LO available to them, surely this is good news.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

Well, what do you think about the "PDF" use(support)?

Should I start digging that format a grave as well?

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by kidslumber

At the moment saving an odf file as a word document can result in less than perfect results. It's hard to criticize LO or OO because they are using an open standard to match a proprietary format. But if MS is serious, it should be able to perfectly import an open standard document into their proprietary format.

For authors who are required to supply a Word document, but only have OO or LO available to them, surely this is good news.

Ah, because MS Office is so cheap now (I get the full suite for $50), its been a long time since I used OO, pre-Oracle actually, but I do not really remember any problems with Word docs (that was pre-docx too, though).

[StoryEnthusiast]

I'm amazed it's taken MS such a long time to support PDF fully.

[Penforhire]

I'll be glad to see Word import PDF's. Office 2010 already does a fine job exporting to PDF, excluding Project. I still use a 3rd party print driver style converter to output Gantt chart PDF's.

ODF or XML may become the industry standard but even today our experience is PDF is still the safest format for formatted document exchange. Our only common annoyance is having to scale PDF printouts between ANSI and Euro sizes (e.g. A4 and Letter).