Word document format in Open Office??

[Sealbhach]

I'm just a bit puzzled about how this came to be possible.

Why would Microsoft allow this? If you can make Word compatible documents in a free application then it's a strong disincentive to spend money on MS Office?

So how did it happen?:confused:


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[fatality_uk]

You mean the new xml format?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML

[brunovecchi]

I'd turn the question around. Why would governments and institutions save their valuable information in a format whose specification is not known?
I guess that Microsoft HAD to give away some information in order to keep a minimal degree of confidence among its most important customers.

[forrestcupp]

Microsoft didn't have a choice. There's nothing illegal about what OOo did. And it's not like MS released the specs for them to make a good plugin. The OOo devs actually reverse engineered the format without any prior knowledge or information. Docs from OOo aren't exactly like ones from MS Word, but they're close enough to work. It's kind of like how you see some chefs trying to imitate KFC's original fried chicken seasoning.

If you try it out, you'll find that a document saved from Word as a .doc file is a lot smaller file size than the exact same document saved as a doc in OOo.

[LaRoza]

I'm just a bit puzzled about how this came to be possible.

Why would Microsoft allow this? If you can make Word compatible documents in a free application then it's a strong disincentive to spend money on MS Office?

So how did it happen?:confused:


Why? Because of the EU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#Microsoft_Office_interoperability

[pp.]

I'm just a bit puzzled about how this came to be possible.

Why would Microsoft allow this? If you can make Word compatible documents in a free application then it's a strong disincentive to spend money on MS Office?

I don't quite see what it is that you find strange. It has been a number of years that most makers of office programs routinely read and write each other's formats. There is only one maker which keeps on ignoring the fact that there are other formats.

[LaRoza]

There is only one maker which keeps on ignoring the fact that there are other formats.

And that is changing I hear, soon.

(Abiword, for some reason, doesn't use ODF, but it can do .doc as well)

[cb951303]

Microsoft released all binary format specs in february, better late than never: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx

I don't understand why this didn't make more sound in the open source community. I believe openoffice developers did their best to support doc, xls and ppt but importing these *messy* format 100% correctly is simply not possible just by reverse engineering thus openoffice becomes often usesless for me when I have to work with older docs. And I may be wrong but at least in my country *.doc is still the most used format while exchanging documents.

Should we expect a better ms binary format compatibility in future openoffice releases? Or do they choose to better support *.docx since its the future of ms office?

I couldn't find any info about it in google, this thread seemed ok to post my ideas about the issue :)

Thanks