The Jack and Joe File Format Story

Jack is a GNU/Linux and free and open source software pro and uses OpenOffice. Joe uses Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office suite. Joe does justice to his name and is an average 'Joe' when it comes to computers. Joe creates a document using Microsoft Word and sends it to Jack. Jack opens the document and has absolutely no issues with it. Now it's Jack's turn to create a document. Jack saves the document in Microsoft word, .doc, format and sends it to Joe. Absolutely fine.

Jack tells people that there is a beautiful office suite called OpenOffice which can be downloaded from openoffice.org for free. Using openoffice.org one can open documents saved in Microsoft Office format. One can also save documents in Microsoft Office formats. Many users have realized that OpenOffice is superior to Microsoft Office.

.doc, .xls and .ppt are proprietary file formats of Microsoft. Microsoft does not provide information for other office suite software developers to read and write to these file formats. When you create a document in any of these file formats you are locking yourself to Microsoft. You are depending on Microsoft Office application. Microsoft decides how your documents will be displayed in the future versions of their office suite.

To prevent such vendor lock-ins, the ODF standard was developed. Please follow the link and read more about ODF. OpenOffice and other office applications support ODF. When you create a document and save it in ODF you are not locking yourself to any vendor. Files saved in ODF can be opened in OpenOffice, KOffice and other applications.

Microsoft does not support ISO approved file format in their Office suite. Users of Microsoft Office are unable to open documents saved in ISO approved file format.

Now, Jack creates a document and saves it in .odt file format. Jack sends this document to Joe and other friends. Everybody but Joe opens this document using different applications that support ODF. But Joe cannot open this ISO approved file format because Microsoft Office does not support it. Joe is under the mercy of Microsoft.

The specialty of OpenOffice is its compatibility to Microsoft and other office suites. OpenOffice supports ODF. OpenOffice can be used on Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux and Unix operating systems.

How can Joe open the .odt (an ODF format) format sent by Jack? There are two answers to the question. Joe can download Openoffice from www.openoffice.org and install it on his computer. He can then use OpenOffice to read ODF files. Another option is to use the Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office. The Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office gives users of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint the ability to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format. The ODF Plugin is available as a free download from the Sun Download Center.

The best solution for such file format issues is to use software that support industry or ISO approved standards. One should consider avoiding proprietary software to prevent vendor lock-in. Why depend on and be at the mercy of one software vendor when there are free and open source alternatives?