Blackmoor Vituperative

Just because Microsoft refuses to support ODF (Open Document Format) never meant that someone wouldn’t write a plug-in to enable Microsoft Office users to read and write ODF documents. Well, it’s happened.

In an interview with Groklaw‘s Pamela Jones, the OpenDocument Foundation Inc.‘s co-founder and president, Gary Edwards, said the Foundation will be presenting Massachusetts with an Office plug-in that will allow Office users to open, render, and save to ODF files, while also allowing translation of documents between Microsoft’s binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF.

In the interview, Edwards said that the Foundation has “completed testing on an ODF Plugin for all versions of MS Office dating back to MS Office 97. The ODF Plugin installs on the file menu as a natural and transparent part of the open, save, and save as sequences. As far as end users and other application add-ons are concerned, ODF plugin renders ODF documents as if it were native to MS Office.”

Edwards hopes that this plugin, which also supports accessibility add-ons, will end any further debate about whether ODF is suitable for government use. Microsoft has continued to take pot-shots at ODF as being unsuitable for business or government users.

(from Linux-Watch, Coming soon: ODF for MS Office)

Frankly, I’d be just as happy if MS Office simply died, but I guess this is good for people who work in institutions which stupidly refuse to switch to OpenOffice.