Fully compatible with Microsoft Office?

[Dotan Cohen]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 16:21, Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org> wrote:
> Microsoft Office isn't 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. They change
> stuff to get you to buy a new version. The new versions are not always 100%
> backwards compatible with the old. And then there is bug-for-bug
> compatibility: When Microsoft ships buggy software others are stuck with the
> dilemma of emulating the bug or being incompatible. I know I have looked at
> the raw e-mail for Outlook meeting invitations and seen absolute clear
> errors about timezones/DST. Time and dates are difficult for Microsoft.
>

Without a doubt.

> Recently I gave up trying to use Open Office on a spreadsheet because I
> couldn't get it to stop reformatting my entries (I put ASCII in I wanted
> identical ASCII out*), I ended up using Gnumeric. A lot of scientific data
> has been lost over the years because somebody put it in a spreadsheet and
> Microsoft insisted on reformatting it in surprising ways; I am sure Open
> Office has gone to great efforts to be compatible with such "features". Be
> careful what you wish for.
>



> Anyone who uses more convoluted features of MS Office will not only risk
> being incompatible with Open Office, but they will risk being incompatible
> with future versions of MS Office. That said, I am sure Microsoft is better
> at knowing their secret formats than are folks in the open source community.
>

All pre-2007 formats are publically documented now. They even have a
we-wont-sue-you license for the documentation. Find them here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381461.aspx

Actually, some googling led me to the specs for the current versions as well:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313118.aspx

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com