|
|
Article: Office formats open to question. Microsoft insists that its new document formats are completely open, yet it failed to reconcile them with the Opendoc industry standard. Is it a plot to retain world domination? Clive Akass reports.
- Article from:
- Personal Computer World
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Incisive Media, published with the permission of Incisive Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
It is hard at first sight to see what the fuss is all about over the rival next-generation office formats (see page 14). The Office 12 and Open Document formats are both based on XML, which uses a simple (in principle) tagging system to describe the layout and content of office documents.
You can create your own set of tags and any XML-savvy application should be able to use a document based on them so long as the file includes a description of your tags or a pointer to one.
This seems so flawlessly open a framework that you may wonder why Microsoft, notoriously more interested in locking in users, is adopting it. The company says that XML is too useful ...