Randomthots wrote:
1. Does Microsoft's XML standard now encompass all document types? Last
I knew they only had an XML format for Word.
Microsoft's FAQ says:
"Currently, only Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, and
Microsoft Office PowerPoint will use Office XML Formats"
In particular, it doesn't cover InfoPath, Visio, Publisher, etc.
2. If the answer to 1 is "yes", then how does their format for
spreadsheets compare to OD for verbosity?
I haven't yet seen any examples of the new Excel format. But verbosity
isn't really an issue.
I probably don't understand this all well enough, but the sheer size of
OD spreadsheet files (before compression) bothers me. It seems like
there is an incredible number of characters required to describe each
cell, which can't help the processing speed any.
The number of characters has no effect on speed. There is no reason why
<w:r> is faster to parse than <text:span text:style-name="T1">.
To someone who actually works in XML, the verbosity of OpenDocument is
welcome because it makes the file format a lot more transparent.
I notice that in the examples cited in the article that MS tends to use
very short tags like <w:r>, whereas the OD tags are full words like
<text:p text:style-name="Standard">. I realize this aids in human
readability but most of the time... who cares? I'm not going to be
reading the raw file anyway.
Please read the top of the article. It explains why you should care
about which format is understandable. Because the developer who is
writing the application you want to use needs to understand it and know
how to use it. And the more understandable the format is, the better the
support, and the better the compatibility.
Understandability/simplicity/etc has a DIRECT effect on things you do
care about like how many applictions support it, and whether you can
reasonably expect a file produced by one to be read by another (ie.
interoperability).
And interoperability is the whole point of using XML. If you don't care
about a developer understanding the format, you might as well be using
Microsofot's .doc.
Using obscure tags like <w:rPr> is gratuitous obscurity. It makes it
harder for competitors to understand the format and support it for no
benefit.
Daniel.
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