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October 11, 2005

Why Open Document Standards Make Sense

Many companies and organizations have been archiving their documents for years. Unfortunately, the majority of their older documents are in proprietary formats that are no longer used. If anyone wishes to read these older documents they must either use a special computer with the old word processing software or spend a deal of money on plug-ins or converters to view the document. If we are to look forward we can see that the same thing will probably happen again. Currently, the majority of people use Microsoft Document (.doc) format or Star Office/Open Office Document Format (.sxw) for all their documents. These formats, while making sense in the current business environment, may have no place on modern systems in ten years. How can a company be sure that their documents remain readable, usable and, for future use, convertible? The answer lies in open document standards. The most recent, and most promising open document format is the Open Document Format set forth by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). This new open format takes advantage of XML, or Extensible Markup Language, which allows sharing of the document between readers/writers that can read XML. (On a side note, Microsoft is slowly moving toward using XML in their closed document format.) What does this mean for future document sharing and retrieval? It means that you will be able to. Since XML and ODF are standards there will be multiple vendors offering readers and writers for a long time to come. Not to mention that in a worst case scenario the document is still readable via web browser and very easily exported to a number of other formats. Remember, documents are of no use to anyone if they can't be read!

Posted by on October 11, 2005 01:06 PM

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