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Sun Develops ODF Plugin for Office
Techtree News Staff, Feb 08, 2007 1549 hrs ISTSun Microsystems has developed 'StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology' that enables two-way conversion of MS Office 2003 suite and ODF.
Sun Microsystems has developed software, 'StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology' that enables two-way conversion of Microsoft Office 2003 suite and ODF (Open Document Format for XML).
The 'StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology' Preview plug-in application for Microsoft Office 2003 lets PC users with assistive technologies to access documents written in ODF.
The technology preview is based on the OpenOffice.org platform, the open-source office productivity suite developed by the OpenOffice.org community, including the founder and main contributor, Sun Microsystems.
Initially, the plug-in application will support the conversion of text documents (.doc/.odt), while the support for spreadsheet and presentation documents is expected in April. The company claims the conversion to be absolutely transparent to the user with minimum additional memory footprint.
Rich Green, Executive Vice President of Software, Sun Microsystems, said, "Organizations can now consider switching to ISO/IEC 26300 ODF while protecting employees needing assistive devices only supported by legacy Microsoft software. ODF is important because it ensures documents will still be readable long into the future, while allowing a wide choice of proprietary and open source software choices to work with the documents."
Adding to it, Marino Marcich, Managing Director of the ODF Alliance that promotes the use of OpenDocument Format as the primary document format for governments, said, "Adoption of the ISO Standard OpenDocument Format has grown significantly in the past year, as more governments and businesses around the world embrace the standard. This plug-in will simplify and further accelerate implementation of ODF by allowing users to standardize their work flows on ODF, so that they become vendor independent, and can choose between multiple implementations and suppliers going forward."
The OpenDocument Format was accepted as an official OASIS standard in May 2005, and adopted by the International Standards Organization in May 2006.
The 'StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology Preview' is expected to be available in mid-February 2007 at sun.com/openoffice, while the final software is expected to be released by mid-June.
Also Read:
Software Makes 'Word' Open Source
The 'StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology' Preview plug-in application for Microsoft Office 2003 lets PC users with assistive technologies to access documents written in ODF.
The technology preview is based on the OpenOffice.org platform, the open-source office productivity suite developed by the OpenOffice.org community, including the founder and main contributor, Sun Microsystems.
Initially, the plug-in application will support the conversion of text documents (.doc/.odt), while the support for spreadsheet and presentation documents is expected in April. The company claims the conversion to be absolutely transparent to the user with minimum additional memory footprint.
Rich Green, Executive Vice President of Software, Sun Microsystems, said, "Organizations can now consider switching to ISO/IEC 26300 ODF while protecting employees needing assistive devices only supported by legacy Microsoft software. ODF is important because it ensures documents will still be readable long into the future, while allowing a wide choice of proprietary and open source software choices to work with the documents."
Adding to it, Marino Marcich, Managing Director of the ODF Alliance that promotes the use of OpenDocument Format as the primary document format for governments, said, "Adoption of the ISO Standard OpenDocument Format has grown significantly in the past year, as more governments and businesses around the world embrace the standard. This plug-in will simplify and further accelerate implementation of ODF by allowing users to standardize their work flows on ODF, so that they become vendor independent, and can choose between multiple implementations and suppliers going forward."
The OpenDocument Format was accepted as an official OASIS standard in May 2005, and adopted by the International Standards Organization in May 2006.
The 'StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology Preview' is expected to be available in mid-February 2007 at sun.com/openoffice, while the final software is expected to be released by mid-June.
Also Read:
Software Makes 'Word' Open Source
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