House of Commons Accepts Only Word Documents

[helliewm]

Please see an email I received today if you make any submissions/ comments to a Select Committee at the House of Commons in the UK they will only accept Word documents!:( :(

Never mind the fact the French Parliament will be using Ubuntu and Open Office!

http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6166347.html

I am quietly furious.

Helen

Dear Helen

First, we are sorry to hear your bad news and entirely understand your
difficulties.

You may send us a spell checked version of the submissions. We, and our
publishers, ask for Word documents as we need to be able to edit and
format the documents for publication. We can use your pdfs, it just
takes a little longer and if most are in Word then the odd one or two
can be accomodated.

Please let us have the corrected version when you can. If you make
substantial changes then pls warn us.

Many thanks.

******** *********
****** Select Comittee
House of Commons

[aeiah]

they probably only accept submissions that are in english too, since thats what the vast majority of people use in this country.

i would like to think that after a while they'll come to accept open office, but in reality, after a while, they'll have simply upgraded microsoft office and this'll be able to handle .odf without a problem.

[helliewm]

Seriously annoying that you have to buy Microsoft software for anything to be accepted.

I submitted my documents in pdf format and that is what they are objecting too , urgh!!

I shall resubmit them in pdf format too!

Helen

[Tomosaur]

Hey wait a minute do NOT resend them just yet. Tell them that you do not have any means to create Word documents, and point out that as Word is propietary software, you will be forced to spend money to absolutely ensure that it is cross-compatible. The house of commons has to be accessible to everyone in this country, using Word means it isn't. It's probably public funded too, which means your taxes have theoretically already paid for at least one copy of Word. Remind them that since they will need to keep many documents for future reference, it is very stupid to store them in a propietary format, as there is no way of knowing whether they will be able to be referred to in the future.

If you have any contact info for them I would be grateful, you shouldn't be FORCED to buy something if you don't want to.

[qpwoeiruty]

Doesn't OpenOffice do a fairly good job converting into the Word 98/2000/XP format for noncomplex documents?

And "pls warn" them that the entire world doesn't live on MicroSoft alone. If they bought Adobe's PDF software instead, they could do their edits on PDFs , which are a more standardized format...

[Crashmaxx]

All they want is a .doc, and openoffice.org can save as the format without a problem. Sure, its annoying, but you don't have to buy M$ anything to give them what they want.

[helliewm]

Considering I am making a Submission of Evidence to a Select Committee that I want to be taken seriously. It does not look very good if all the formatting goes horribly wrong and creates an unprofessional document. That is my point. To submit Evidence to a Select Committee is a serious business. I desperately want want my Evidence accepted by the Select Committee. It really does need to be well presented.

The only way you could reliably do this is by using Microsoft Office

I will probably get them to accept my evidence in pdf format and then complain!

Helen

[ComplexNumber]

helliewm
just use openoffice and save it in doc format. apart from documents that use the most complex MS-office features, openoffice seems to be able to handle it fairly well.

it won't always be this way with MS formats.

[Tomosaur]

Considering I am making a Submission of Evidence to a Select Committee that I want to be taken seriously. It does not look very good if all the formatting goes horribly wrong and creates an unprofessional document. That is my point. To submit Evidence to a Select Committee is a serious business. I desperately want want my Evidence accepted by the Select Committee. It really does need to be well presented.

The only way you could reliably do this is my using Microsoft Office

I will probably get them to accept my evidence in pdf format and then complain!

Helen

I can understand your frustration, certainly, but having any legal case rest on the fortunes of Microsoft is a fairly fragile position, considering the format could be radically changed at any time, and backwards compatibility is ONLY present at the whims of Microsoft themselves.

An open document format means that even if the document formatting DOES radically change some time in the future (ie, so a document written today will display either incorrectly or not at all 10 years in the future), then the old information about that format will still exist, and the document is still accessible. The fact that your information is being submitted as EVIDENCE makes the request for a Word file even worse.

Yes, OpenOffice can save and open .doc formats right now but this can change at any time in the future if Microsoft change their own implementation of .doc.

I would certainly submit your work as soon as possible, but I think registering a complaint is very important here. It may sound like a non-issue to many people, particularly those who don't involve themselves in technology or whatever, but it IS a very big issue, when you take into account that documents, particularly those submitted as evidence in a legal case, need to be stored and accessible for decades to come. Propietary formats just do not allow this with any degree of certainty.

[helliewm]

Thanks but I am not taking a chance on it looking a mess, then are having it in pdf format! Its just my luck something would go wrong with the formatting and it would end up looking a total mess.

Helen

[DoctorMO]

All they want is a .doc, and openoffice.org can save as the format without a problem. Sure, its annoying, but you don't have to buy M$ anything to give them what they want.

This is a principle thing, it's a government department and how DARE they not use ISO formats; this is as stupid as USA using Letter sized paper instead of ISO216 or any government using any proprietory, none standard format. it's got nothing to do with software and everything to do with corrupt and unprofessional politics.

If any government or business requested word docs from me I would think substantially less of them, how can you respect that disregard for industry standards?

[pingvin]

Does anyone else take issue with the fact that they want to edit your document in the first place? Since when is evidence editable?

Mike

[qpwoeiruty]

Does anyone else take issue with the fact that they want to edit your document in the first place? Since when is evidence editable?

Mike

If they edit it for clarity/grammar/tone and get you to sign or initial the changes, I don't see anything wrong with it, as long as they don't change the intent or factual details.

[silkstone]

Saving as .doc from Open Office will almost certainly not be a problem - I do it all the time for important documents that go to people with MS Office, and have never had a glitch.

BUT.... If you want to be absolutely sure, and if you're running Windows as dual boot, you can install the Word Viewer to check that the .doc file is OK.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

[helliewm]

Yes I noticed that too. Why do they want to edit peoples evidence?

Here is the website for the House of Commons Select Committees. I have purposely left out the name of the one I am submitting evidence too.

This is the Home Page for Select Committees at the House of Commons

http://www.parliament.uk/what_s_on/hoc_news3.cfm

Helen

Ps I do not dual boot so cannot check it with a Word Viewer.

Its the principle here has really annoyed me. Plus that want all my official supporting documents in Word format. These happen to be Government documents that I have downloaded in pdf format from Offical Government Websites and they want me to change their very own documents to Word Format. Its just a joke!

[NotPhil]

I will probably get them to accept my evidence in pdf format and then complain!As long as you use the Microsoft TrueType core fonts and the RTF format, they should be able to read your document, even in MS Word, the way you formatted it. If any of your documents contain a lot of images, tables, or complex formatting, you should probably stick with PDF for it.

And, yes, you should complain. It's irresponsible of them to rely on single-vendor proprietary file formats for their data, and it's ridiculous for them to require everyone else to use them also.

[Dual Cortex]

pffft... commons. I'm sure the House of Lords accept .odf documents.
[/sarcasm]

[aysiu]

I don't think opening an OpenOffice-created .doc in Word causes any formatting problems (unlike sometimes opening a Word-created .doc in OpenOffice).

Will they accept .rtf? That will allow them easy edits, too.

[bruce89]

Since when is evidence editable?

It was with the Iraq dossier.

[helliewm]

The joke is my supporting evidence that I downloaded from Govt web sites in pdf format they want in Word format.

What do I do contact the Govt Dept who's web site I downloaded the pdf documents from and ask for them in Word Format as the Select Committee the part of Govt that scrutinizes Govt Dept will only accept Word Format??!! Even Govt Dept's aren't consistent!

Helen

[helloyo]

what the hell?

they requested that you supplied .docs if possible (which you very easily can!) or if not the PDFs will just take a little longer. how is this unreasonable, at all? every government agency doesn't have to keep up with every recent development in standards or OSS.

[NotPhil]

what the hell?

they requested that you supplied .docs if possible (which you very easily can!) or if not the PDFs will just take a little longer. how is this unreasonable, at all? every government agency doesn't have to keep up with every recent development in standards or OSS.It's unreasonable because .doc format isn't a standard, it's Microsoft's secret file-format that other word processors can use only because someone went to the trouble to reverse engineer it, or a rival corporation gave up and payed licensing fees to use it.

This has nothing at all to do with open-source software or recent developments. We're talking about standards for data: your data or a government agency's data, not Microsoft's data. Open standards for text data have existed before .odt, and the only reason some company or agency would require .doc files is because its IT staff is unconcerned about, or ignorant of, the costs and dangers associated with locking up their data in proprietary file formats.

The notion that everyone needs to buy Word, or pay licensing fees to MS for their bloated, secret, malware-vulnerable, .doc file format is absurd. I'm sure very few people would be happy if their local governments required them to submit everything in ClarisWorks, or StarOffice, or Corel Office, or Lotus SmartSuite format just because their IT staff purchased that product and couldn't be bothered to use it with an open-standard data format.

[tigerpants]

I thought the whole point of pdf's was that any platform could read/edit/print from it.

Don't know why the house of commons is complaining.

[helliewm]

I thought the whole point of pdf's was that any platform could read/edit/print from it.

Don't know why the house of commons is complaining.

Thats what I thought and why I submitted pdf documents! Its obviously not the case!

Helen

[aidanr]

Ps I do not dual boot so cannot check it with a Word Viewer.

don't need to, seems to work with wine (http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=5376)

[floke]

Helliewm,

You might care to point that this is in breach of the government's own stated policy on the use of open source software, particularly given that the rationale for the use of OSS is to ensure interoperability between public agencies, and ease of access to e-Government.

A useful document can be found here:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=20&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.govtalk.gov.uk%2Fdocuments%2F oss_policy_version2.pdf&ei=YVAARtv4GIHs0QSQ47DLBA&usg=__ctVIaaGSVKbi2uNZTz6AHT3cG1w=&sig2=QsvhVAqMCTIDe0OJfnO7ZA

If you need any more then just give us a shout.

[LookTJ]

Is this because Microsoft is paying them to use Office 07?

[Choad]

Thanks but I am not taking a chance on it looking a mess, then are having it in pdf format! Its just my luck something would go wrong with the formatting and it would end up looking a total mess.

Helen
havent read this past this post, but you can save it in .doc and re-open it in openoffice.

any lost formatting will be easy to spot, if it looks the same then its fine.

i am not saying it should be this way, they should accept odf. but if you're looking for a means to an ends, then you can do it this time by exporting it and re-importing it

[mediax]

Helen,

First of all, I fully understand (and agree with) the issue of principle here. Parliament is supposed to be accessible by all. Even those who don't own a computer, come to that.

That said, I would send your submission as a Rich Text File. It's a Word format (just not Microsoft's proprietory one), and you can even set it as the default file type to be used when saving files.

Good luck - and give 'em Hell !!! :guitar:

[daynah]

I understand your worry. I have to turn all my files to Word so I can print them. I.... lost my printer. I know it's SOMEWHERE in my car. Long story. Anyway, so I convert them at work where I use Word. If you'd like, you can email it to me and I'll convert it and make sure it looks pretty. If it doesn't, I'll try to edit it all nice for you and take a screen shot and email it back. ya?

Ubuntu!

[Village]

You could consider posting them a copy. They will then have to spend time (and tax payers money) in getting someone to type it up, or photocopy it, you could then attach a note suggesting that they consider using Open Document standards.

I have some experience with Local Government IT systems. And they are in a shocking state, not only that but they generally seem to be only interested in looking at MS products, and don't seem to realise that there is competition out there.

So you know the situation, I remember arriving on my first day and discovering the computer I had to use was running Windows 95 and this was in 2006! Now the orgainsation I work for is looking to spend a lot of money with large IT providers to get them out of this hole. I have suggested alternatives (free source), but these have been knocked down. On the grounds that Open Source would actually cost more!

[DoctorMO]

It's a Word format (just not Microsoft's proprietory one)

The Rich Text Format (often abbreviated to RTF) is a proprietary document file format developed by Microsoft since 1987 for cross-platform document interchange. Most word processors are able to read and write RTF documents. Unlike most word processing formats, RTF is human-readable. - Wikipedia

Helen, the first part is that you should send all government pdf files back to them as pdfs explaining that the published standard that the government uses to communicate with the public is ISO 19005 (PDF/A) so in light of this set standard you will further communicate with the government using pdf because all government offices should have pdf editors in order to comply with their own standards.