Alex Hudson, J. David Eisenberg, Bruce D’Arcus and Daniel Carrera of the OpenDocument Fellowship have provide this article for us, comparing OpenDocument Format and Microsoft’s new MS XML format technically, not legally. Groklaw will be doing that separately, but this article addresses interoperability. That is the point of XML, after all, is it not?
[Via GrokLaw]
I couldn’t help but conclude that ODF is much easier to read and convert to XHTML than Microsoft’s format. The problem with this analysis is what does this have to do with print format compatibility. For me that is the bottom line. The closer ODF is to HTML the more difficult I think it will be to achieve an acceptable level of print format compatibility with existing documents in MS Word that are not in HTML format. Many documents convert to HTML without problems. Some documents do not convert very well. Tweaking documents to fix minor formatting problems can be a very time consuming task. You start off trying to change one little thing. The rationale is that it is a simple change and it will be a quick fix. The next thing you know you have blown an hour or more trying to do one little thing and you are calling tech support for help. Oh well!