MS Office and OpenOffice in Harmony

Open Document Format is the native way that OpenOffice stores its files.  MS Word stores a letter as a .doc file, and OpenOffice Writer stores them as .odt. 

For interoperability and compatibility, OpenOffice has for a long time supported the Microsoft Office file formats, which meant that people using the open source software could collaborate with those using Microsoft products.  However, MS Office could not read the OpenOffice files.  There were plug-ins and extensions available if you knew where to look, but who in the voluntary sector has time to go looking for esoteric plug-ins?

So occasionally people might forget to save their OpenOffice documents as .doc, and people using MS Office could then not open the files.  This fear of incompatibility has been a barrier for some people on the uptake and use of the free office suite.  

Microsoft's announcement that Office 2007 SP2 will include support for the Open Document Format means that this barrier has now been removed and we can only look forward to greater compatibility between the various office products.  Community and voluntary organisations need not be afraid of utilising quality open source tools again.

Microsoft's press release can be found here.