Microsoft embraces ODF

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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From early 2009 Microsoft’s Office productivity suite will include support for editing and saving files in the open source Open Document Format (ODF). The move comes as Microsoft announces plans to expand its collaboration with the open source community.

From the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) in the first half of 2009, Office will add ODF as well as XML Paper Specification (XPS) and PDF to its Office product. From SP2 users will be able to open, edit and save documents using ODF and save documents into the XPS and PDF fixed formats directly within the application without having to install any other code. It will also allow customers to set the default file format for Office 2007.

Microsoft says it will also work with the open source community to provide ODF support for users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office – including Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003.

"We’re committed to giving Office users greater choice among document formats and enhanced interoperability between those formats and the applications that implement them," said Paulo Ferreira, platform strategy manager at Microsoft SA. "By increasing the openness of our products and participating actively in the development and maintenance of document format standards, we believe we can help create opportunities for developers and competitors, including members of open source communities, to innovate and deliver new value for customers."

Office Open XML

Microsoft has also announced its plans for implementing support for its own Office Open XML (OOXML) standard. The company recently won a hard-fought battle with open source advocates to have OOXML approved as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

OOXML is not yet fully supported by Microsoft’s own products but the company plans to update that support in the next major version of Office, codenamed Office 14.

The company says it plans to be an active participant in the future evolution of ODF, Open XML, XPS and PDF standards. One of its plans is to join the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) technical committee working on the next version of ODF and will take part in the ISO/IEC working group that is being formed to work on ODF maintenance.

Microsoft Office discussion