OpenDocument software

"Mobile Office" redirects here. For the portable building, see Mobile office.

This is an overview of software support for the OpenDocument format, an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents.

Current support

A number of applications support the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications; listed alphabetically they include:

Text documents (.odt)

Word processors

Other applications

Data management

Text management

Translation support

Bibliographic

Spreadsheet documents (.ods)

Spreadsheets

Other applications

Data management

Knowledge management

Statistics

Translation support

Presentation documents (.odp)

Presentation

Other applications

Graphics documents (.odg)

Other applications

Formula documents (.odf)

Search tools

Other planned support

Programmatic support, filters, converters

There are OpenDocument-oriented libraries available for languages such as Java, Python, Ruby, C++ and C#. OpenDoc Society maintains an extensive list of ODF software libraries for OpenDocument Format.

OpenDocument packages are ordinary zip files. There is an OpenDocument format which is just a single XML file, but most applications use the package format. Thus, any of the vast number of tools for handling zip files and XML data can be used to handle OpenDocument. Nearly all programming languages have libraries (built-in or available) for processing XML files and zip files.

Microsoft

Microsoft has been offering native support for ODF since Office 2007 Service Pack 2.[59] Microsoft is hosting the 8th ODF Plugfest in Brussels in 2012.

In October 2005, one year before the Microsoft Office 2007 suite was released, Microsoft declared that there is not sufficient demand from Microsoft customers for international standard OpenDocument format support and therefore it will not be included in Microsoft Office 2007. This statement was repeated also in next months.[60][61][62][63] As an answer, on October 20, 2005 an online petition was created to demand ODF support from Microsoft.[64] The petition was signed by circa 12000 people.[65]

In May 2006, ODF plugin for Microsoft Office was released by OpenDocument Foundation.[66] Microsoft declared that the company did not work with the developers of the plug-in.[67]

In July 2006 Microsoft announced the creation of the Open XML Translator project—tools to build a technical bridge between the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats and the OpenDocument Format (ODF). This work was started in response to government requests for interoperability with ODF. The goal of project is not to implement ODF direct to Microsoft Office, but only to create plugin and external tools.[68][69] In February 2007, this project released first version of ODF plug-in for Microsoft Word.[70]

In February 2007 SUN released initial version of SUN ODF plugin for Microsoft Office.[71] Version 1.0 was released in July 2007.[72]

Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 was released on 28 April 2009.[73] It added native support of OpenDocument 1.1 as well as other formats like XPS and PDF.[74][75]

In April 2012, Microsoft announced support for ODF 1.2 in Microsoft Office 2013.[76]

Microsoft has financed the creation of an Open XML translator,[77] to enable the conversion of documents between Office Open XML and OpenDocument. The project, hosted on SourceForge, is an effort by several of Microsoft's partners to create a plugin for Microsoft Office that will be freely available under a BSD license. By December 2007, plugins had been released for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. Independent analysis has, however, reported several concerns with these plugins, including lack of support for Office 2007.[78]

Third party support: Two ODF plug-ins for Microsoft Office

There are currently two third-party plug-ins:

  1. Sun Microsystems' ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office users [79] (download link no longer available as of 30/3/2013)— gives users of Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint the ability to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format (ODF). It works with Microsoft Office 2007 (with service pack 1 or higher), Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office XP, and even Microsoft Office 2000.[80][81]
  2. ooo-word-filter [82] — enables users of Microsoft Word 2003 to open OpenDocument files.

A third plug-in, OpenOpenOffice (O3),[83] is apparently inactive. OpenOpenOffice was developed by Phase-n, a free and open source software plug-in to enable Microsoft Office to read and write OpenDocument files (and any other formats supported by OpenOffice.org). Instead of installing a complete office application or even a large plug-in, O3 intended to install a tiny plug-in to the Microsoft Office system. This tiny plug-in intended to automatically send the file to some server, which would then do the conversion, returning the converted file. The server could be local to an organization (so private information doesn't go over the Internet) or accessed via the Internet (for those who do not want to set up a server). A beta of the server half has been completed, and further expected announcements have not occurred. Phase-n argued that the main advantage of their approach is simplicity. Their website [84] announces that O3 “requires no new concepts to be explored, no significant development, and leverages the huge existing body of work already created by the OpenOffice developers, the CPAN module authors, and the Microsoft .NET and Office teams. They also argue that this approach significantly simplifies maintenance; when a new version of OpenOffice is released, only the server needs to be upgraded.

A fourth plug-in was announced by the OpenDocument Foundation in May 2006[85] but development was stopped in October 2007.[86]

Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 support controversy

Microsoft supports OpenDocument format in Office 2007 SP2.[87] The current implementation faces criticism for not supporting encrypted documents and formula format in the same way as other OpenDocument-compatible software, as well as for stripping out formulas in imported spreadsheets created by other OpenDocument-compatible software. [88] [89] Critics say that with this conflict of standards Microsoft actually managed to reduce interoperability between office productivity software.[44][89][90] The company had previously reportedly stated that "where ODF 1.1 is ambiguous or incomplete, the Office implementation can be guided by current practice in OpenOffice.org, mainly, and other implementations including KOffice and AbiWord. Peter Amstein and the Microsoft Office team are reluctant to make liberal use of extension mechanisms, even though provided in ODF 1.1. They want to avoid all appearance of an embrace-extend attempt." [91] However, according to the ODF Alliance, "ODF spreadsheets created in Excel 2007 SP2 do not in fact conform to ODF 1.1 because Excel 2007 incorrectly encodes formulas with cell addresses. Section 8.3.1 of ODF 1.1 says that addresses in formulas "start with a "[" and end with a "]"." In Excel 2007 cell addresses were not enclosed with the necessary square brackets, which could be easily corrected." [88] This however has been contested as the ISO/IEC 26300 specification states that the semantics and the syntax is dependant on the used namespace which is implementation dependent leaving the syntax implementation defined as well.[92]

Before SP2, Microsoft had sponsored the creation of the Open XML translator[77] project to allow the conversion of documents between OOXML and OpenDocument. As a result of this project, Microsoft financed the ODF add-in for Word project on SourceForge. This project is an effort by several of Microsoft's partners to create a plugin for Microsoft Office that will be freely available under a BSD license. The project released version 1.0 for Microsoft Word of this software in January 2007 followed by versions for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint in December of the same year. Sun Microsystems has created the competing OpenDocument plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 (Service Pack 1 or higher), 2000, XP, and 2003 that supports Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.[81] The ODF Alliance has claimed that third-party plug-ins “provide better support for ODF than the recently released Microsoft Office 2007 SP2”. [88]

Dynamic languages

Some open source application programming interfaces, designed for OpenDocument handling, are available in various dynamic programming languages such as Perl and Python. The lpOD project is an example.

Accessibility

One important issue raised in the discussion of OpenDocument is whether the format is accessible to those with disabilities. There are two issues: does the specification support accessibility, and are implementations accessible?

Specification

While the specification of OpenDocument is going through an extensive accessibility review, many of the components it is built on (such as SMIL for audio and multimedia and SVG for vector graphics) have already gone through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative processes.

There are already applications that currently read/write OpenDocument that export Tagged PDF files (to support PDF accessibility); this suggests that much or all of the necessary data for accessibility is already included in the OpenDocument format.

The OASIS OpenDocument technical committee released a draft of OpenDocument 1.1 on 2006-07-27, for public comment through 2006-09-25.[93](registration required) This is a very minor update to the specification to add accessibility information, mainly soft page break markings, table header markings, presentation navigation markings, alternative text and captions, and specifically stating that spreadsheets may be embedded in presentations. Peter Korn (an accessibility expert) reviewed version 1.1 “to satisfy myself that all of our accessibility concerns have been addressed”, and declared “I am so satisfied.”[94](registration required) [95](registration required)

Implementations

Peter Korn gave an in-depth report[96] on OpenDocument accessibility. He noted that there are many kinds of impairments, including visual (minor, major, or blind), physical (minor, major with vocal control, major without vocal control), auditory, and cognitive. He then noted that the situation varies, depending on the specific disability. For a vast number of disabilities, there are no known problems, though.

It is important to note that since OpenDocument is an Open Standard file format, there is no need for everyone to use the same program to read and write OpenDocument files; someone with a disability is free to use whatever program works best for them.

See also

References

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  3. ↑ "Adobe to acquire Virtual Ubiquitys". Adobe Systems. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
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  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 KOffice 1.4 Announcement and KOffice 1.5 Announcement
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  16. ↑ Nisus Writer Pro 1.2
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  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 OpenOffice.org 2.0 features
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 Release notes
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 IBM Lotus Symphony -
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  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 NeoOffice 1.2.2 Release notes
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 NeoOffice file formats
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 StarOffice 8 reviews
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  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 phpMyAdmin exports data to ODT and ODS
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  38. ↑ eZ Publish - ODF Import / Export extension
  39. ↑ OASIS Open Document extension, September 19, 2005
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Scribus - Change Log 1.2.2, 2005 , Support for OpenDocument (OASIS) Standard, June 5, 2005
  41. ↑ EditGrid feature EditGrid changelog/blog 2006
  42. ↑ OpenOffice.org XML File Format (aka ODF or OASIS)
  43. ↑ JUST Suite 2009 Sanshiro , JUST Suite 2009
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  45. ↑ Zoho Sheet features
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  48. ↑ Karbon ODG support - KOffice 1.4 Changelog , KOffice 1.5 Changelog
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  52. ↑ Ability Office - planned ODF support
  53. ↑ EIOffice 2009 support for ODF
  54. ↑ http://www.zdnet.co.kr/etc/eyeon/enterprise/0,39036961,39164305,00.htm
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  56. ↑ Hudson, Alex (2006-10-24). "ODFReader :: Add-ons for Firefox". Addons.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  57. ↑ Wikipedia announcement
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1
  59. ↑ "Next Office 2007 Service Pack will include ODF PDF Support options". Betanews.
  60. ↑ Office 12 to support PDF creation, 03 Oct 2005
  61. ↑ Microsoft 'must support OpenDocument', 06 Oct 2005
  62. ↑ 23 March 2006, Gates: Office 2007 will enable a new class of application
  63. ↑ May 08, 2006 - Microsoft Office to get a dose of OpenDocument
  64. ↑ OpenDocument Support: Tell Microsoft You Want It!, 20 October 2005
  65. ↑ ODF Fellowship Petition
  66. ↑ Coming soon: ODF for MS Office, May 04, 2006
  67. ↑ Microsoft Office to get a dose of OpenDocument, May 5, 2006
  68. ↑ Microsoft Expands Document Interoperability, July 5, 2006
  69. ↑ Open XML Translator project announced (ODF support for Office), July 05, 2006
  70. ↑ February 1, 2007, Microsoft to release ODF document converter
  71. ↑ Sun to release ODF translator for Microsoft Office
  72. ↑ Sun releases ODF Plugin 1.0 for Microsoft Office, July 07, 2007
  73. ↑ Download details: The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)
  74. ↑ Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office: Move enhances customer choice and interoperability with Microsoft's flagship productivity suite.
  75. ↑ 2007 Office Service Pack 2 Changes
  76. ↑ Loek Essers (2012-04-25), Microsoft to Support ODF 1.2 Open Document Standard in Office 15, retrieved 2012-05-03
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  79. ↑ "Oracle and Sun". Sun.com. 2011-10-04. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
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  81. ↑ 81.0 81.1 "Sun's OpenDocument filter for MS Office is finished.". Heise Online. 2006-07-04. Retrieved 2007-07-06.
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  83. ↑ "OpenOpenOffice | Free software downloads at". Sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  84. ↑ http://o3.phase-n.com/
  85. ↑ Thursday, May 04 2006 @ 02:31 AM EDT (2006-05-04). "OpenDocument Foundation to MA: We Have a Plugin". Groklaw. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  86. ↑ "ODF calls time on da Vinci coding". The Register. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  87. ↑ "Office 2007 SP2 Supports ODF". PC World. April 28, 2009.
  88. ↑ 88.0 88.1 88.2 "Fact-sheet Microsoft ODF support" (PDF). odfalliance. Retrieved 2009-05-24. A test spreadsheet created in Google Docs, KSpread, Symphony, OpenOffice, and the Sun Plug-In 3.0 for MS Office, for example, when loaded in MS Excel 2007, failed to process correctly. This is because the formulas used to perform calculations within a spreadsheet (e.g., adding numbers in a column of cells) are simply removed in MS Excel 2007. Instead of performing the calculations, what is left is when the spreadsheet is loaded in MS Excel 2007 is the last value that cell had, when previously saved. The same test spreadsheet, when loaded and saved in all the other applications besides MS Excel 2007 (e.g., between KSpread and Google Docs), does process correctly. Most other ODF spreadsheet applications are able to interoperate just fine. The correct approach would have been for Microsoft to do the same to ensure that MS Office users can share spreadsheets with other ODF-supporting office suites.
  89. ↑ 89.0 89.1 "In Office SP2, Microsoft manages to reduce interoperability". zdnet. 2006-05-19. Retrieved 2009-05-21. Yet Microsoft Office SP2 claims to have a fully compliant version of ODF, and that’s probably true, as defined by the specification. It’s just completely useless at interoperating with other vendors’ products. This is not interoperability, it’s an attack on the very concept.
  90. ↑ "Microsoft’s ODF Support Falls Short". Open Document Alliance. ODF Alliance. 2009-05-19. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  91. ↑ "Orcmid's Lair: Microsoft ODF Interoperability Workshop". Orcmid.com. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  92. ↑ Where everyone knows your name: ODF 1.1 formula support in Office SP2
  93. ↑ www.oasis-open.org
  94. ↑ www.oasis-open.org
  95. ↑ ODF-v1.1-draft7_a11y_requirements_review.odt
  96. ↑ "Massachusetts, Open Document, and Accessibility". Sun. 2005-11-13. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  • Korn,

Peter (November 13, 2005).

(November 10, 2005)

External links