Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Released, Supports ODF Out of the Box 274
shutdown -p now writes "On April 28, Microsoft released service pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007. Among other changes, it includes the earlier-promised support for ODF text documents and spreadsheets, featured prominently on the 'Save As' menu alongside Office Open XML and the legacy Office 97-2007 formats. It is also possible to configure Office applications to use ODF as the default format for new documents. In addition, the service pack also includes 'Save as PDF' out of the box, and better Firefox support by SharePoint."
Great (Score:5, Interesting)
Now having PDF as a "native" option (and , as a minor option, odf as well) without installing extra software , this is a real winner. Good work.
Re:Great (Score:1, Interesting)
I want my screen real-estate back I am missing 1/3 of my screen to that ridiculous ribbon bar?
Good God! when office 2030 comes along my documents will look like twitters....
What caused Adobe to back off? (Score:5, Interesting)
Save as PDF was supposed to be a feature in Office from the beginning, but Adobe objected (legally) and forced them to pull it, so MS offered it as a separate download. I wonder why Adobe decided to drop their objection to MS putting this is Office.
Re:Great (Score:5, Interesting)
It allows them into markets they were being shut out of in europe. Plus ATM they don't have much to worry about, openoffice is clearly lagging behind and the other OSS suits while strong in some areas are significantly lacking in other. Additionally due to the lack of innovation in office suites it's unlikely that a something will take them away from number #1 spot quickly and they are unlikely to be caught off guard like they were by firefox, if they start seeing a major competitor then they can go back to their old techniques.
So while they opening themselves up to competition, they are so far ahead (in terms of market share and in some senses their product is also superior), that it's worth it in order to not get shut out of certain markets that require open documets.
Its not like this is their first effort to open up there formats either, i think they contributed to apache POI used to stand for "Poor Obfuscation Implementation", but that's not mentioned on their website much anymore ;)) as well. There is also the iso that while not entirely open does force them to be somewhat more open.
Re:Great (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Great (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but my experience is the opposite. Our university department also had our lab machines upgraded to Office 2007 due to pressure from our IT personnel. It was promptly rejected by all the students and all the staff as frustrating and incompatible. Nobody liked it.
It was frustrating because commonly-used options were hidden away (no "Office classic" mode? What were they thinking?), and incompatible because there were enough changes in Excel (for example) to break tools that were set up in previous versions. Then there's the default .XML format which students and staff had to learn wouldn't work on their older versions at home without saving as 97-2003 format first (and sometimes *that* didn't work properly either).
The final straw was spending an hour trying to find and then figure out how to properly paginate a document divided into sections with different page number styles (e.g., a thesis document). I knew how to do it in prior versions, and it was fairly easy. Not only had the menu options been rearranged and relabeled, but the help sucked, and the behavior seemed to be different even when we did find it the right menu.
After 2 weeks of this sort of thing we insisted that IT restore the 2003 version, and when the call went out for software to be installed on the new lab hardware coming later this summer, the number one request was Office 2003. Whether IT will support that, I don't know. But if they don't, then I'm insisting OpenOffice be installed too.
PDF as a "native" option? Big deal. We already had PDFCreator [sourceforge.net] installed anyway, it works for more than just Office, and it's free.
Office 2007 is an expensive and unnecessary "upgrade" that may make sense to IT departments already paying for Microsoft licenses, but that's because they only have to deploy it. They expect everyone else to work through the retraining, and for what benefit, exactly? What was wrong with Office 2003 or OpenOffice if those already worked fine?
Re:Great (Score:3, Interesting)
First, although I don't really doubt you, do you know that Office '07 SP2 saves ODF formulas incompatibly or are you speculating?
Second, is there a mechanism to deprecate 1.1 and force Microsoft to support 1.2 if they want to continue to claim "ODF support"?
Re:Great (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, and apparently for Windows 7, they have finally given in to reason and dropped the classic start menu. Just because you're used to something doesn't mean it's better, it means that right now, its better for you, because you aren't familiar with anything different and potentially better. I'm sure that for at least 90% of users, once they've been using the new interface for a week or two, they'd be just as comfortable as with the old one. It's the initial fear of change that prevents them from spending the time getting used to the new interface in the first place. The menu system 'worked for millions of people' because there was nothing better until the ribbon was introduced.
Obligatory car analogy: I've been driving my 2002 Toyota with no power steering or ABS or pretty much any features, and despite knowing there are better options available to me now, was perfectly happy with it until my parents got a new car 6 months ago with a bunch of fancy features. After having driven their new car, my 2002 model shows its age and clunkiness. Prior to that I'd have brushed off things like power steering and electric mirrors as unnecessary (I have driven in cars with them before, but not often), and steering wheel radio controls as being overly complicated, but after spending a holiday with them driving their car for a while, it actually sucked going back to my own one.
Re:Victory is ours! (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know. With Microsoft at least we're dealing with one entity: in the event it is needed the government can go to Microsoft and say "hey, we need you to support your older formats better so we can ensure they're accessible and/or move them to newer ones"; there's someone definite to deal with, entrenched so they're strong to a great extent (and not likely going anywhere), with all the incentive in the world to ensure they please such requests (which when governments request something of Microsoft, request not sue, then Microsoft usually complies).
With ODF there's standards, yes, but compliance of implementation is optional; there's no one in particular fully responsible for ensuring that compliance--there's no enforcement; people balked, for instance, at Microsoft's stipulation that anyone implementing their Open XML comply completely as a means to ensure nobody could, but that's not a totally fair representation: it's a good way to ensure actual interoperability, and if it makes it difficult on others then it's convenient for them. In the event Microsoft did sue some competitor for failure they at least have the reasonsable defense that as they understood it they were compliant, and that Microsoft overzealously prosecuted (just like with the GPL if you violate but don't realize it, but state reasonably that as you understood it you were compliant, but due to things vague your were mistaken and will correct it, it is a defense: even the FSF zealots recognize and understand this: in real ways I prefer MS, however, over the FSF, because with MS you can incentivize and be pragmatic, realistic; with FSF it's moaning, 'everyone, quick, switch LGPL to GPL, you really should, help our zealotry!!!"; they're not realistic or sensible on such things--even arguing with Linus that Linux as is is illegal because LGPL libs sit atop a GPL kernel, and they'd prosecute everyone if they could).
Anyway, the above is just food for thought, not dogmatism. Anyone with better thought or who can extend it, or critique reasonably, or whatever, is welcome to. Cheers! : )
Re:Great (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess they couldn't get OOXML working properly and decided to give in and use ODF instead.
It's a trap? (Score:4, Interesting)
Strict compliance seems to be a new Microsoft strategy: look at their dogged adherence to CSS 2.1 standards in IE8, including adding a formidable number of new CSS tests to the W3C test suite. It's hard not to suspect that they're up to something, but I don't think anyone has quite nailed what it is yet. With ODF, at least, it seems they are obliged to follow the spec to the letter.
Microsoft's strict compliance probably a good thing if it forces other developers to bring their apps more into line with the specs (although it will be interesting to see how OO copes with legacy documents while sticking to the spec).