OpenDoc plug-in For MS Office Users

Sam Varghese of The Age writes:

Software industry group Open Source Victoria has teamed up with NSW technology company Phase N to develop a plug-in for Microsoft Office users to view documents in the Open Document Format.

The solution has been named OpenOpenOffice or O3.

OSV is an industry grouping of more than 100 Victorian firms and developers providing services for free and open source software.

Microsoft Office does not support the Open Document Format, the next-generation standard for office documents such as word processor files, spreadsheets and slide-show presentations.

OSV convener Con Zymaris said the adoption of the Open Document Format would enable sharing of documents created using different office software suites.

Most office productivity suites on the market, including OpenOffice.org, Sun’s StarOffice, Corel Office, Abiword, KOffice and others, support the format.

“The major hold-out here is Microsoft, which refuses to support ODF - a decision that seems based on self-serving reasons, to protect the near-monopoly of their high-priced Office suite,” Mr Zymaris said. “The ones who will suffer are the users.”

O3 developer Adam Kennedy said creating a filter for MS Office to read Open Document Format files was relatively simple.