Microsoft Support for OOXML/ODF

Just a quick entry on ODF support by Microsoft Office.  Looks like Microsoft has announced support for the Open Document Format (ODF) with SP2 of Office 2007 – which probably won’t come out until 2009.  There’s an interesting ZDNet article by Tom Espiner called "OOXML backwards compatibility led Microsoft to ODF" for some additional info on the subject.

Sun to the rescue

If you’re needing ODF support a tad sooner than 2009, head on over to Sun for the "Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office", which enables office to read and write ODF.  The plugin supports Office 2007 SP1 (and higher) as well as Office 2000.  Don’t bother with the "Sun Download Manager", just pull down the "Sun ODF Plugin 1.2 for Microsoft Office – Installation Set" exe file and install.  When picking your OS, oddly enough, Vista doesn’t show up.  I pulled down the "XP Pro" version and installed it and so far so good.  Once installed, it adds an additional option to the Word->Save As->Save As Other->Save as type: drop-down (see below).

Doug White