Microsoft supports the ODF open source standard in Office 2007 SP2

A set of documents describing in detail the support for the standard OASIS Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1 for the upcoming office application package this year is in an effort to establish a common environment between text formats new generation.

Next, Microsoft will also release details to support the Open XML format (Ecma 376 Edition 1) in Office 2007.

The documents above provide comprehensive guidance on how Microsoft implements ODF as well as Open XML within the framework of their flagship product and is provided free of charge on a text-compatible promotion website.

This will be a useful tool for software developers in finding opportunities to improve the compatibility of their solutions with Microsoft products, aiming at 3 main objectives of enhancing management and lifting capabilities. High transparency and improved interaction.

" This contribution is critical to the process towards a solid and realistic interconnection environment between applications ," said Dennis Hamilton, an architect specializing in text system compatibility and commentary. " The move from Microsoft has removed barriers to different text formats being supported in more detail ."

Meanwhile, Doug Mahugh, Microsoft Office's standard compatible project manager, said: " With the publication of detailed documentation on the inclusion of text file formats in Office application packages, we bring these information that the software community can use as a reference channel for their own applications We encourage other companies to take similar moves to contribute to better format compatibility in the whole industry ".

The standard text developed by Microsoft has a full name, Office Open XML (OOXML) was first approved as an open format by ISO in September 2007. In the meantime, Microsoft has gradually taken this standard into a completely open and interconnected format. In May 2008, US software company announced support for two PDF (Adobe) and ODF formats in Office suite. A month later, they published specific guidelines. To date, many applications have begun to show positive results of the above compatibility expansion. For example, there is software that allows other Internet Explorer browsers such as Firefox to view .docx text files in Word 2007. The OpenOffice.org office software version developed by Novell has also well supported Microsoft's OOXML standard. Apple's Mac OS X operating system and iPhone phone are also quite compatible with standard Microsoft documents.

Microsoft Office 2007 software suite including Word, Excel and PowerPoint has applied Open XML as the default storage mechanism for text files, spreadsheets and presentations. Users of previous versions of Office 97 and 2003 can also apply this new format by installing additional free Microsoft compatible tools to ensure data is compatible with the XML platform.