MS Office Open XML Formats and OpenDocument XML format
I've had a number of questions and e-mails asking if the new Office open XML formats are going to be the same as the OASIS OpenDocument format. Rather than reply to the various comments & e-mails separately I figured I'd just attempt to summarize everything as a new post. Sorry it took so long to reply to this issue, but I have been distracted by TechEd for the past week. Scoble actually swung by and talked with Jean Paoli and me about this just before I left for teched. You can watch that video here: https://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=76169
The primary question I've been getting is whether or not the two formats are the same. The two formats are very different even though they both use ZIP and XML because they use different schemas. The basis for the OpenDocument format work was the OpenOffice.org XML file format (https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/faq.php) that originated I believe with the StarOffice product, where the goal of that group was to create an open and interoperable format. Similarly, our goal in Microsoft has also been to create an open and interoperable format. That’s why we made such a big push to use both ZIP and XML, because they are already so widely in use. Actually a lot of other people in the industry also use XML with ZIP to create XML based formats, for example in the CAD industry it’s great because XML compresses so well with ZIP and provides an easy to use container. That wide use makes it easier for people to take our formats and build on top of them. This is where the similarity between the two formats stops though: Our primary goal at Microsoft was to create an open format that fully represented all of the features that our customers have used in their existing documents, documents that have been created using the existing Office products over the past couple decades.
Office has over 400 million customers, and we have a responsibility to continue to support all existing documents and all the existing functionality. There are billions of documents that we are going to help move into our new XML formats, and so a key constraint on all of our efforts was that these new formats had to support all those existing files and features with absolutely no loss. To give you an idea of how big of an undertaking that can be, we have more than 1600 XML elements and attributes that reflect the features in Word alone in Office 2003. This is why we had to design a new format instead of shoehorning our features in another existing format (Jean Paoli explains this in the video on Channel9).
Let's talk a bit about the interoperability of the two formats, since that’s an important topic to be clear on. Because both formats are open and documented, it is possible to create a transform (or filter) that goes between the two. The interoperability problems will start to come up if there are features that are present in one application but not present in the other application. You have to assume this will be the case since every application out there has a different set of customers that request different features. From the Microsoft point of view we have so many features we built over the years and it would be extremely unlikely that those features work exactly the same way in other applications. Believe me, there are *tons* of features in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and we have a responsibility to our customers to continue to support them.
I’m hoping that over time, as we publish these new schemas and provide documentation, people will start to build tools for going from our formats into other formats (and vice versa). We already did this with Word 2003's XML when we build an XSLT to transform into HTML that you can find here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=19676b18-1bcd-4852-93ba-0b5a203ea731&displaylang=en. There is also an example up on the web of how to use XSL-FO with WordML. I'm also going to push hard for us to build more of these transforms that we can post up on the web. I'll probably start posting some example stuff for the Word 2003 XML over the next few months since that’s the format that is currently out there for people to play with. Let me know if there are any simple transforms you'd like to see. Also please tell me about your experience if you do have converters that you built for Office 2003 XML and how we can make things easier to build.
-Brian
Comments
Anonymous
June 13, 2005
Hello Brian,
Good post. I posted some comments over on my developerWorks blog @ http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/dw_blog_comments.jspa?blog=351&entry=83640Anonymous
June 13, 2005
I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say how substantive I found the sessions and talks hosted by you, Scott W., Shawn V., and Chad R.
Thanks for presenting these well prepared and dynamic events. I hope that your team got as much from them as I (we) did.Anonymous
June 13, 2005
Thanks Gene! I had a great time last week talking with everyone about the new formats. It was well worth the trip down there. I'm glad you found it as useful as we did.
There will be plenty more information to come over the next several months. If you can, you should try to make it out to PDC in September. We'll have some more sessions on the file formats, as well as individual sessions for the different applications. I hope to see you there! Also, let me know if there are specific topics you'd like me to drill into, and I'll try to write some stuff up.
-BrianAnonymous
June 14, 2005
hello,
as far as I know both OpenOffice and the OpenDocument-Folks are an open group. You could have talked to them about your problems with the format and I suppose the would have helped you.
StarOffice/OpenOffice has also many customers that are using all the different versions and features but they've managed to integrate it with the new format. The real problem is NOT the format. It's the will to lock people in on MS-Formats.Anonymous
June 14, 2005
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June 14, 2005
TestAnonymous
June 14, 2005
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June 14, 2005
Brian, while it's true that MS Office and OpenOffice.org will differ on features, it's also understood that most people only use a small subset of the features available. Does Microsoft have to have 100% feature compatibility before they will support the OpenDocument format? I argue that there is no need. You support the features that you can and you ignore the rest. It's not like these features will make the document not readable. The whole point of XML is that it's flexible. Please reconsider at least some support. If your format is truly open (meaning Open Source can read/write without license problems), OpenOffice.org will probably support your format, and if you want true interoperability you will do the same. After all, who has more resources available to them?Anonymous
June 14, 2005
I would have to be a litte skeptical of this proprietary MS format. Just another way to lock users in to your products?Anonymous
June 14, 2005
which format have office 97 documents?xml???Anonymous
June 14, 2005
Just a side note, the OpenOffice.org format isn't zipped, its gzipped, which is a different format.Anonymous
June 14, 2005
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June 14, 2005
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June 14, 2005
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June 14, 2005
===cut===
on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 12:28 AM Kaiwai wrote:
Just a side note, the OpenOffice.org format isn't zipped, its gzipped, which is a different format.
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wrong
please read the OpenDocument v1.0 specification
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
especially chapter 17
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17.1 Introducion
[...]
OpenDocument uses a package file to store the XML content of a document together with its associated binary data, and to optionally compress the XML content. This package is a standard Zip file, whose structure is discussed below.
[...]
===cut===Anonymous
June 15, 2005
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June 15, 2005
And will the world actually care?
With the admitted lag in pick-up for Win XP, the core gutting of the perennially delayed Longhorn, the GAW (Generally Accepted Wisdom) that MS' business practices are at the least constraining if not actually detrimental to users' best interests, the wide availablity of 'good-enough' (a previous MS strategy, BTW) free alternatives, who can MS cajole or beat into submission to utilize the newest and greatest lock-in?
No, I don't think I'm bitter. It is just that Microsoft has educated me and I have naturally moved on.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
These are all great comments. I'll try to pull together a larger writeup that addresses the different concerns at some point today (It's a pretty busy day though, so it might not come until later in the day).
Russ, thanks for your comments. Not really sure I have much to say in reply. Sorry you're bitter. Hopefully as you read more about what we're doing with the formats you'll start to gain more interest.
Josh - I know you guys aren't morons. If I thought that I wouldn't be wasting my time on this blog. What are the specific issues you are concerned about with our formats that would make you say they aren't open formats. What are some examples of formats you view as open and what are the differences between those formats and ours that make you feel that way? We have freely available documentation, royalty-free licenses, and we've listened to customer input when designing them. I'm assuming there is something else you are looking for. Most people I've talked to are pretty excited that we're moving away from the curent binary formats and giving them a new open format (that's the default) they can take advantage of.
-BrianAnonymous
June 15, 2005
OK, I'm not really a Microsoft fan, and in fact use a Mac and avoid MS products most of the time, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Microsoft moving to an XML-based format for Office is a tremendous achievement and one which will help Microsoft and competitors both in different ways. Microsoft will gain the benefits of integrating into an XML workflow, and competitors will be able to transform the Office XML (calling any XML format "proprietary" is pretty silly you know) into any other format they want. Everybody wins, except the whiners who like to dump on Microsoft for no real reasons other than spite.
Folks, you must realize that while MS may have stomped on a lot of people in the past, they are improving their strategy and supporting a lot more open standards going forward. Let's encourage that, instead of continuing to throw stones.
JaredAnonymous
June 15, 2005
Document format is "Open" when:
1) Applications using this format should not wary about patent issues.
2) Format full specification is available on the web
3) (optional) C++ stand-alone library for reading/creation of documents is available and does not require additional proprietery technologies (like ActiveX).
So, is your document XML format open?Anonymous
June 15, 2005
I (and I suspect most other readers) DO actually appreciate you taking the time to discuss these formats online.
Still, I can understand (and agree with) the reasons which are driving people to be somewhat abrasive in some of the posts. Microsoft has definitively proven that it will do whatever it can to lock its customers in and avoid competing on technical (and now price) merits. If Microsoft's corporate attitude is actually changing for the better now (after all that rhetoric about the GPL being "cancerous" and "un-American" and so forth) it will take serious, prolonged, positive action on Microsoft's part to prove it, in light of its previous behavior and criminal activity.
Two issues have come up repeatedly about these new formats specifically - the 'embrace/extend/extinguish' sort of approach MS appears to have taken to the OASIS formats, and the almost-certainly-intentional devising of license terms for the format that prohibit GPL licenced software from using them.
On the first issue: Microsoft is evidently a MEMBER of the OASIS group, and as many people have pointed out, it ought to have been possible for MS to participate in the development of the standard to allow for whatever special "support for old proprietary features" data is necessary. Instead, Microsoft seems to have refused to work with others and instead took the concept that came out of OASIS and made their own special version - a common tactic MS seems to like to use.
On the second issue: I previously commented on the license problem. The terms have been carefully chosen to require the addition of restrictions (the "advertising clause") to the licenses of any software that uses this format. Since the fundamental purpose of the GPL (as I see it) is to avoid having unscrupulous entities (individuals, corporations, whatever) poison a downstream derivative of a GPL-licensed product with additional restrictions as the price one pays to license the GPL'd product, this blatantly forbids the use of the GPL. Given the over-the-top ravings that have previously come out of Microsoft regarding how much Microsoft hates having to agree to such terms to use the software (unlike the BSD-style licenses which allowed Microsoft to, for example, get a 'free' TCP/IP stack which could be made proprietary, without giving anything back in return) one can only assume this was an intentional act. Is THIS the reason MS developed their own special standard? Because the existing, documented standard would not have MS-imposed anti-GPL restrictions? (This is a serious, fundamental question that I wish someone would honestly address...)
Despite my well-warranted skepticism, though, thanks for trying to answer the questions that have been coming up.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
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June 15, 2005
I'd love to see a really good filter for converting Word XML to LaTeX and back again. I currently don't use any Microsoft products, but I could consider going back to Word if it worked better with LaTeX than OpenOffice does.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
===cut===
What are the specific issues you are concerned about with our formats that would make you say they aren't open formats.
===cut===
for starters: take a look at your license for the existing office 2003 xml file format:
Office 2003 XML Reference Schema Patent License
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp
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Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.
[...]
You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights.
===cut===
Need a little help to what I want to point you at? Then read the posting from Carsten Svaneborg from 11/17/2003. The URL is http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2003/Nov/0262.html
And another good read is "Patently ridiculous" from Judith Wusteman from 02/2004
The article is available from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mcb/238/2004/00000022/00000002/art00014
Focus your read at the end conclusion Judith comes to:
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Imagine a scenario in which a major digital library of several million documents is archived in Microsoft Office 2003 Word format. It can be saved as XML so, of course, it is future-proof and hence an appropriate archival format. After a couple of years, Microsoft upgrades to Word 2006. A couple of years later, it upgrades again, this time to Word 2008. At this point, Microsoft "sunsets" Word XP, that is, it ceases to support it. Word 2008 may be able to read Word 2006 files but history tells us that it may not be able to read Windows 2003 files. But the files are in XML so it should be easy enough to create a reader for them -- except that there's a patent on the format so this would be illegal until that patent has expired. The result is several million unreadable documents. Archiving documents in formats encumbered by patents will always be a bad idea.
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What are some examples of formats you view as open and what are the differences between those formats and ours that make you feel that way?
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What´s wrong with actively participating in an standardization gremium -- like the OASIS OpenDocument -- to define a truly open file format that serves as the main file format for not only one software product from one vendor.
Like others said in this comments here...
of course it would be nice if Microsoft adopt OpenDocument as its main file format but if that would -- as you claim -- not be possible because you think you need "more than 1600 XML elements and attributes that reflect the features in Word alone in Office 2003" than theres nothing wrong with doing your own thing. No one can stop you from doing that.
But how about implementing an import filter for OpenDocument file format? If you are truly desperate you could even implement an OpenDocuemnt export filter. Don´t mind that some features of Microsoft Office wouldn´t be possible to be saved in OpenDocument but export as much information as you can. That would be a good start.
And to quote you " it is possible to create a transform (or filter) that goes between the two". The specs for the OpenDocument file format is freely available to you. You just have to implement it properly.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
Thanks Thomas:
You should probably check out the FAQ for the open royalty-free licenses we are providing. It answers your concerns about patents, and also shows that Judith doesn't need to worry. One of the big benefits of our new format is the fact that people can now archive their Office files long term and have absolutely no lock in to Microsoft for accessing those files. Here is a clip from the FAQ:
<start>
Q. If Microsoft obtains a patent for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas, does that in any way affect the royalty-free license?
A. No, the license is unaffected. Under the patent license for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas, Microsoft offers royalty-free rights both to its issued patents and patents that may be issued in the future.
Q. The patent license associated with the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas states that "Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas." What does this statement mean and to what specific patents and/or patent applications does this statement relate?
A. As an industry leader in the design and development of innovative computer technology, Microsoft has made a significant investment in research and development (R&D). With an annual budget of nearly $7 billion, Microsoft's R&D commitment is among the highest of the world's major technology providers, both on an absolute basis and as a percentage of sales. Like other major technology providers, Microsoft routinely applies to governments around the world to obtain patents on our inventions. A patent establishes ownership of an invention, enabling the patent owner to benefit commercially from investments in innovation. A patent is granted if government patent examiners conclude that an invention is a true innovation compared with existing technology. Microsoft has been awarded thousands of United States patents, and our worldwide portfolio continues to grow.
Under the patent license for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas, Microsoft offers royalty-free rights both to its issued patents and patents that may be issued in the future as an outcome of the patent process. To learn more about Microsoft's intellectual property policy and to find links to government patent offices, we encourage you to learn more about Microsoft Intellectual Property at the Microsoft Web site.
We have chosen a simple and straightforward licensing approach that should appeal to a wide variety of potential licensees because it broadly covers all applicable patents and patent applications instead of only those that are enumerated.
</stop>
You also made a great point at the end of your post. Both formats are completely open and documented so anyone can build a transform to go between the two. That’s why we are talking about this so soon. We already have people building transforms on top of our Word 2003 XML format, as well as the SpreadsheetML format that we actually started building back in 1999. Anyone that wants to can build it! Microsoft has thousands of partners that we work with to build solutions on top of our applications. These new formats open up all kinds of possibilities for those partners, or anyone else out there, to build solutions to map from our formats into any of the other XML formats out there (there are tons of them!).
-BrianAnonymous
June 15, 2005
Brian wrote on June 15, 2005 2:58 PM:
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I already talked a bit in the initial post around why the two formats are different.
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That wouldn´t be if you would have actively participated in OASIS working group...
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There have been a number of questions though about why we didn't work with OASIS to extend the OpenDocument format to work for us.
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And that is a good question to ask. So why didn´t you?
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It's a bit odd because at the same time there are also complaints about not wanting us to "embrace and extend."
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Than just don´t "embrace and extend".
To stress it once again: If you would have actively participated in OASIS OpenDocument working group than you would have had the chance to help to design a file format that is "suitable for office documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents" like http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/charter.php states.
But you chose not to participate in that effort. Instead you have waited. Waited that the OASIS working group comes to a file format and now you whine because the bad bad OpenDocument file format is not suitable to save all of your Microsoft Office features.
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Making the OASIS format fully compatible sounds like a nice idea if you are just looking the surface, but that's a more simplistic view. I'll try to explain this better later.
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Please do.
I´m curious why you think that.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
>Both formats are completely open and documented so anyone can build a transform to go between the two.
True, but unless it comes built in it might as well not exist as people will not find it easy to go between the two.
>Anyone that wants to can build it!
See point above. In addition people are afraid that they might get sued. Sure you say, "we won't" but then you usually prepend that you're not a lawyer. So how about we do have one of you lawyers definitely saing: "The GPL [is|isn't] comptatible with our terms" That should be easy enough for a FAQ entry. This way people can be sure that MS won't go back on their word and weasel out through some lawyer-speak.
Thanks for this blog and thank you for taking the initiative toward an open format. It sure is better than it was.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
You got that? Practically identical royalty-free patent license, except that Sun apparently doesn't require notice to be carried, but it has the same limitations as the Microsoft RF license on the XML Reference Schemas. And yes, that would appear to make software that accesses OASIS OpenDocument formats as vulnerable as people seem to think they are with the Microsoft license.
It's all here: http://orcmid.com/blog/2005/06/microsoft-ox-vs-oasis-od-is-it-really.asp
Now, you can still use it with the GPL, but you don't want to envelop code that accesses the OASIS OpenDocument format under the GPL, because you don't want people making derivative works in ignorance of the license stipulations. I spent some time fussing over that and figuring out how to stay clean here: http://orcmid.com/blog/2005/06/heavy-lifting-toward-open-formats-in.asp
I could of course be wrong about what's necessary to play safe. It won't be the last time I've been off about something. Maybe compliance is easier. Fine, then it is for both of them because both licenses work the same way.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
To orcmid:
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That OASIS declares a 706-page unimplemented specification as being an "OASIS Standard" is fairly amazing.
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OpenDocument will be implemented in OpenOffice.org Version 2.0 and in KDE KOffice Version 1.4
Unimplemented specification? Do we talk about OpenDocument or about Microsoft Office Open XML?
If you think OpenDocument is unimplemented than you are uninformed. Please take a look at OpenOffice.org, KOffice, IBM Workplace, StarOffice. OpenDocument is not a dream. It is a real format with enough support to present a real alternative.
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It will take substantial effort to reality-check that specification, and it will be a little while before anyone confirms multiple, interoperable implementations.
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Could it be that all members of the OASIS OpenDocument working group already did that? How do you think they agreed on that standard?
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It seems to me that OpenDocument must be demonstrated to accommodate the Microsoft Office format, not the reverse.
Can OpenDocument accurately represent documents created in Microsoft Office, preserving all of the features of those documents?
===cut===
If Microsoft cannot store its office document features with the existing OpenDocument file format than you cannot blame OASIS. OASIS welcomed everyone including Microsoft to help designing a new file format based on OpenOffice.org´s XML file format.Anonymous
June 15, 2005
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June 15, 2005
Brian,
I'd like to ask you a simple question. Can you guarantee 100%, not 90, not 95 or even 99, but 100% that Microsoft will not in ANY way in the future attempt to limit non Microsoft applications from opening, editing or converting from your xml format, whether by patent enforcement, licence changes or by any other means.
Maybe the Leopard IS changing it's spots, moving from proprietary to completely open file formats, but please understand why people remain nervous when the words Microsoft, Licence and Patent appear in the same context.Anonymous
June 16, 2005
Brian,
Thanks for the ability to discuss you blogging.
Recently, I've performed some very limited work with an XML format.
You said "...because XML compresses so well with ZIP and provides an easy to use container." This is exactly what I understand XML to be. A system of containers.
I note in your previous/initial article: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/06/01/424085.aspx
Which states: "4. Backward compatible: There will be updates to Office 2000, XP, and 2003 that will allow those versions to read and write this new format. You don’t have to use the new version of Office to take advantage of these formats. (I think this is really cool. I was a big proponent of doing this work).
5. Binary Format support: You can still use the current binary formats with the new version of Office. In fact, people can easily change to use the binary formats as the default if that’s what they’d rather do."
Which leads me to conclude your "NEW" system is a format with may containers; however each container has a proprietary or patented document format. You will have a Word 2000 XML container tied to a proprietary/patented embedded binary which just happens to reside in an "open" XML container; and a Word XP XML container tied to a proprietary/patented embedded binary which just happens to reside in an "open" XML container; etc.
I can understand the workload necessary to support and create this multi format XML container that supports all of MicroSoft's previous proprietary format binaries. I hope I'm wrong. I hope MicroSoft is listening to us technical people who want to understand the details; however, my previous experiences with MicroSoft sets my disposition to be PESSIMISTIC. I would be extremely supprised if interoperability is allowed. That has never been MicroSoft's goal.
This appears to be nothing more then "open" marketing spin around a huge industry buzzword.
Regards,
L JoeAnonymous
June 16, 2005
My primary interest in this conversation is over interoperability and interchange among desktop and office productivity applications and the licenses that enable that.
I have concerns about the Software Patent Miasma (the monster under the bed, as it were) and the associated chills. But this is by no means particular to Microsoft. The current approach to royalty-free licenses for essential claims is commonplace in W3C and OASIS and elsewhere.
I also think we need to stop presuming that Microsoft could actually have influenced the OpenDocument activity in an useful way.
It didn't happen that way, and I don't see how it could have without Microsoft first completing the work that went into Office 2003 XML formats and the remaining difficult effort now needed to get to full fidelity in Office 12.
That would have been an interesting challenge to a modest-sized technical committee that proposed to complete the central part of the work six months after starting from an OpenOffice.org XML format offered by Sun Microsystems in December 2002 (with the usual reciprocal royalty-free conditions). Look how long it actually took without having to negotiate over Microsoft feature harmonization!
Meanwhile, the working out of interoperability agreements when the OASIS OpenDocument format has no requirement for even a minimum set of elements is going to be challenging.
What we have now is timing a timing problem. There will be a long road to convergence on portable formats and document-processing interoperability, the kind that preserves content that matters to people and provides assured access and re-use into the future.
At the moment, we have too many people telling Microsoft what to do and how to do it, but only one hand in the air for accepting the heavy lifting that preserves the varied investments of 400 million users in multiple languages and cultures. Please don't underestimate the importance of that and the difficulty of the effort.
I am resolved to be patient and also cross my fingers in a desire to see the Microsoft Office XML Formats be successfully completed and a spur to wide use.Anonymous
June 16, 2005
I still wish there was one standard and distinguishing features were added via namespaces. I suppose with the two standards, you can transform between the two and place features of one that are not in the other in a namespace for safe keeping.Anonymous
July 04, 2005
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July 18, 2005
I am a Microsoft Office power user and programmer.
The OpenDocument standard, at first glance, seems to a better format then WordML. I would have thought that Microsoft would have more closely followed OpenDocument and then added onto that standard when needed. For example, managing revisions in the OpenDocument format is much simpler then wordML. WordML inserts an annotation and then splits the text run into two separate nodes making it much more difficult to work with the XML. "Annotations" are much easier to work with in OpenDocument.
Sorry, I just don't believe your arguement for not adopting OpenDocument.Anonymous
September 04, 2005
The simple answer: People don't need the features of the Microsoft Office XML format to make information available to the public.
MS could just include support for the format in MS Office and allow users the choice to open their files in the Microsoft software.Anonymous
September 05, 2005
Wow, there were a ton of great comments on my last post. While there were a large number of them, there...Anonymous
September 06, 2005
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September 14, 2005
===
To give you an idea of how big of an undertaking that can be, we have more than 1600 XML elements and attributes that reflect the features in Word alone in Office 2003.
===
well, that does not seem so big ... 100 elements with ~ 16 attributes each ? ... I am not really impressed.
"1600 XML elements" would be impressive ...Anonymous
September 14, 2005
Hey Emil, just a quick scan of the schemas show that there are about 780 elements and 885 attributes for Word 2003 XML.
-BrianAnonymous
October 04, 2005
Granted, your explanation may logically explain why you created a proprietary "standard" to depend upon, but it doesn't explain why you would refuse to support OpenDocument at all...the same way you support .rtf, .html, and .txt.
You say that you can't support OpenDocument because of all the wonderful features of MS products...but you support .html, .txt, .rtf, and others which are much much worse! Furthermore, if you added support for Opening and Saving OpenDocument, then Massachusetts could use Office AND my entire company could use Office (like Massachusetts, the company I work for also stores all documents in OpenDocument, PDF, or other non-proprietary formats).Anonymous
October 04, 2005
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October 10, 2005
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March 21, 2006
I found your page from google but i like it so muchAnonymous
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Andrew Sayers had a great suggestion that I should have a page set up that gives an overview of the blogAnonymous
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