Microsoft released the second service pack for Office 2007, with ODF and PDF support. “Now all Office users will have the option to load and save OpenDocument files, with today’s distribution of Service Pack 2 of Office 2007. In something of a surprise — contrary to what many at Microsoft led us to believe — upon installing SP2 on our test systems, we immediately located an option for saving files in ODF by default. That means you don’t have to “Save As” and export to ODF if you don’t ever want to use Microsoft’s OOXML or Office 2003 “compatibility mode;” you can at least try to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as substitutes for OpenOffice.”
Welcome to 1999, Microsoft!
I guess SP3 will support document tabs
Office 2007 has had PDF support since day 1 of its release via an official MS download. All they’ve done with this SP is roll it into Office.
adobe sued them and made them take it out
It’s progress… although the paranoid could still be concerned that it’s version ODF1.1 not ODF1.2, or that it ODF supports proprietary extensions… or you could just roll out sun’s version of the convertor
http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/
interesting none the less
As far as I’m aware, MS hasn’t done anything proprietary with ODF and/or extensions to the format… yet.
And they aren’t likely to. They are adding ODF, in part, as ammo against the EU’s growing anti-trust concerns. They can point at ODF and say, “Look! Non-Proprietary!” Adding their own extensions would sabotage that.
Also, there is a growing number of governments moving away from proprietary formats. Now, Office can once again be purchased by these governments.
I certainly hope you are right, I really do, and it makes sense. I have to say I’m not ready to trust MS yet given their track record. Not messing with ODF, in addition to providing a point against the EU’s antitrust case, would be a good starting point for MS to prove they are really out to integrate rather than dominate.