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What if all word processors used the same format?What if all wordprocessors used the same format?When I say format, I'm not talking about the user interface format of the software but the nitty-gritty details of the way the file is saved. I'm talking about whether you save your file as a .PDF, .DOC, .TXT, etc type of file. So why should you care? Haven't you always wished that you could send someone your paper and have them open and edit that file with whatever word processor they had and on whatever operating system they were using? It wouldn't matter if they were running Windows, a Mac OS, Linux or Unix and it especially wouldn't matter whether they were using MS Word, Wordperfect, or Winword. Doesn't that just make sense? Why should the format be tied to the word processor? What about searching through those documents if you don't have the word processor program that created them? Wouldn't it be great if those types of problems didn't exist? The shocking truth is that those problems were solved years ago. I recall reading magazine articles in 1999 about this new standard called XML that would make it incredibly easy for organizations to share and edit information no matter what program created it. Even though the technology has been around for years the adoption of such an ideal format has been long in coming. With the XML format a company could search through documents looking for words, phrases, amounts, without ever opening a word processor program. All of that information could be aggregated and used for reports and statistics. That format is available and more information can be found at http://opendocumentfellowship.org/introduction , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument. and http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/5/6/3866. The XML format stores the document information as a compressed file that can be opened with any decompression program that handles the .ZIP format. There are several freely available. The compressed file is nothing more than a folder that has several files. The files either contain the text within the document, the formatting of the text, the images used within, etc. There is a file for each part of the document so if the program ever crashes the user can just unzip the file and pull out their information. File corruption becomes difficult and recovery from file corruption becomes much easier. As someone that had their MSME MS Word thesis crash several times I welcome this format. If this is technically possible then why hasn't the adoption of such a standard been promoted. In short, it has but it hasn't gotten the support of Microsoft. Microsoft not only chose not to adopt the recommendation of the consortium that developed this technology but has chosen to develop a similar but different technology called Open-XML which isn't as open as the consortium's recommended Oasis-XML format. More information about the differences can be found at http://opendocumentfellowship.org/introduction/odf_vs_oxml Over the past several years this issue has caught the attention of governments all over the world and gets much more press than it does here in the US. Massachusetts recently decided that a government agency shouldn't recommend the purchase of software from specific private companies. By publishing all of their documents in .DOC format that is just what they were doing. The .DOC format required the purchase of MS Word or MS Office. They felt that freely available government documents should be just as freely visible to the public and so they threw their support behind the OASIS XML specification. This didn't go over well at Microsoft and more about the specifics can be found at http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Office+to+get+a+dose+of+OpenDocument/2100-1013_3-6069188.html. To be clear, Massachusetts has chosen to use MS Office but not the .DOC format. They have chosen to use the OASIS-XML format. More info can be found at http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6109103.html. Massachusetts isn't alone. There are many countries also specifying the adoption of an open format. Here's a list of national and international governments that are calling for the use of such a format, http://opendocumentfellowship.org/government/precedent. So what has Microsoft done? Well instead of adopting the freely available OASIS-XML format they chose to go it alone using their own Open-XML format. You would think that they would at least include both types of formats offering their users the freedom of choice of which to use natively in their next release of Office 2007. Not so. Microsoft has now supported a third party project to create a plugin that users can download. The user can find the MS- sponsored OASIS-XML plugin at http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter/and install it themselves. The OpenDocument Foundation has also created a plugin that is currently out being tested. So why hasn't Microsoft adopted the open standard? I don't have official answers but I can speculate that it has to do with monetary reasons and not technical ones. If anyone could use any program on any platform to read and edit a file created by MS Word then why would they go out and purchase MS Word unless MS Word offered features that they needed. The reality is that word processors haven't changed much at all over the past 10 years. MS Word had the features that I readily use in Office 97. I don't think users would be compelled to purchase a word processor that had features that they didn't use. So why is this all important? Why do I care and why should you? There may be a point in time where MS Word is not the word processor of choice while leaving behind countless documents out there that are in .DOC format. For archival purposes it would seem that an openly supported format that can be unzipped and read by any text editor would be a sound choice. Technically, there is no reason to choose the proprietary standards although I understand that there is a lot of inertia and that the most accepted word processor is MS Word. MS realizes this and they also realize the need for an openly supported standard which is why they are supporting the export plugin project. Either way, the .DOC format is disappearing for many technical reasons. At MS they will usher in their Open-XML standard while many others will support the OASIS-XML standard. For a video of this discussion and the problems it will cause please see and more discussion at http://reviews.cnet.com/Microsoft_Office_2007_RTM/4505-3524_7-32143052.html?tag=viddet It is important to note that the .DOC format is going to disappear as MS will be using their OASIS-XML standard; they too realize the improvements offered by the XML format. It just seems prudent that if we are all going to be forced to another format then the choice should be the one that allows us to share with anyone across the world no matter what computer platform they sit at. We are at a point where there are freely available alternatives that operate on all major platforms and all operating systems that support an openly available standard (no licensing payments). We now have that option to choose between a standard that is easily shared with everyone no matter what computer they use or to put it in a format that requires a specific computer program. There is an international movement away from the proprietary formats and we can choose to be on the leading edge of the movement or the trailing edge and there are trade-offs with both choices but ultimately I believe that an openly supported standard and freely available programs will win out. Why education administrators should care? http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome and that are available to reduce the IT budget and increase the available number of computers in school systems. Why educators should care? Is this a growing concern? Below is a list of freely available software that supports the OASIS-XML standard and multiple operating systems,
More information about packages that support this format can be found at http://opendocumentfellowship.org/applications. I encourage you to read up on this topic and make the best choice for yourself or at least start asking your IT administrator about these issues. It is important to be informed about the options that exist so that we can make the best choices possible. |
