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Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw)
Groklaw
looks at the results of Rob Weir's tests of Microsoft's Open
Document Format (ODF) plugin.
"To test conversion fidelity, first he created an ODF document in OpenOffice.org. So that's how it's supposed to look. The original as ODF is there on his blog too. Next, he opens this ODF document in Word 2007 using their plugin. Take a look at the results. Look what happened to his poor ODF document in Word 2007. It's an absolute mess. Why? What is Microsoft's excuse for such shoddy output, when they have, right now, all the documentation and even the source code to work with -- their own and everything from the ODF side too?"
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Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 20, 2006 22:14 UTC (Thu) by azhrei_fje (guest, #26148) [Link] The quote above is a bit derisive, IMHO. While I'm right there with you concerning how they have access to the source code, something like a document format is NOT easy. Just look at how long it took OOo to be able to read and display Word documents in a reasonable way. (I wasn't having much luck up until about OOo 1.9, the beta for 2.0.) Of course, it's easy to fault Microsoft -- I do it all the time -- but doesn't seem like the best way to spend our energy at this point.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 20, 2006 23:43 UTC (Thu) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link] But OOo was reverse engineering the Word format, and it's a pretty cruftyformat by all accounts. ODF is all clean shiny and new and documented. It shouldn't be beyond the wit of MS to read it properly.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 31, 2006 11:56 UTC (Mon) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link] > ODF is all clean shiny and new and documented.
ODF might be new, but it isn't clean, shiny or particularly well documented.
The format itself is horrible if you're used to semantic markup (as compared to DocBook/XML for instance). Titles in ODF are paragraphs marked up with styles.
The documentation is horrible. It lacks examples and consists mainly of the original DTD (or whatever the equivalent is now called in XML) with interspersed comments.
I wrote a program at work to generate ODF documents for reporting. It was a long and painful process which involved a large amount of "generate what I need in OOo, unzip the file, remove tons of cruft, and try to work out what it's doing".
Rich.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 31, 2006 13:09 UTC (Mon) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link] Agreed. The documentation, at least, is a mess. After reading the 700+ page manual, I couldn't figure out how to build a "Hello, world!" document from scratch.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2006 0:40 UTC (Fri) by hozelda (guest, #19341) [Link] >> While I'm right there with you concerning how they have access to the source code, something like a document format is NOT easy.
Of course it is not easy. That is why MSOffice is not really a candidate office suite for those that want or demand ODF support.
I think someone from Microsoft said that they had been working on a plugin for quite some time but without advertizing it. Microsoft probably just needs a lot more time to figure out how to do it adequately. Groklaw is showing this so that people (like Mass. agencies and other groups that require ODF) don't think that Microsoft is likely to have things figured out by the beginning of 2007.
The report also discusses other shortcomings like the fact that MSOffice may not currently meet the Mass. requirement of saving to ODF by default.
But none of this is that much of a big deal because OpenOffice is free and does a really good job meeting most users needs while at the same time fulfilling the Mass. requirements of saving to ODF faithfully as well as saving to ODF by default.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2006 17:50 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] >> While I'm right there with you concerning how they have access to the source code, something like a document format is NOT easy. Careful! MSFT did change their crufty format for an XML-based one (I'd assume sanely designed this time around). They just didn't dare change the name, as Office is their lifeblood. And they will have to (claim that they) support the legacy format(s) for all eternity, for much the same reason. Bad point is that OOo, AbiWord et al will have to do the same...
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 27, 2006 19:15 UTC (Thu) by kitterma (subscriber, #4448) [Link] None of that responds to the comment. XML-based != ODF.
What is it OOo, etc. will have to do? They already support ODF out of the box.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2006 6:05 UTC (Fri) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] OOo did not, however, have access to a complete specification of the MS-Office file-format. Nor did they have access to complete source-code for multiple independent reference-implementations.I agree, even *with* these things, document-formats are hard. But they're a lot easier with these things than they are by reverse engineering of a continuosly moving target.
Taking Microsoft's ODF Plugin for a Spin... Splat (Groklaw) Posted Jul 21, 2006 7:05 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] You miss something IMPORTANT.
MS provide several plugins, including pdf. All the OTHER plugins link into the "save as" dialog box, and are available in the new "make this the default format" box. ODF is NOT AVAILABLE HERE.
ODF is the only format where, to make it the default, you have to muck about with macros and redefine the "save" button.
As somebody on Groklaw said, this isn't an implementation problem. This is a POLICY DECISION. MS doesn't want you to use ODF, period, so they've deliberately made it "a jarring experience", to use a quote from the Netscape anti-trust lawsuit...
Cheers,
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