OpenDocument

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The OpenDocument Format (ODF), short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications) is a format open for document file for storing and exchanging documents for the productivity of office as text documents (such as memos, reports and books), spreadsheets , Diagrams, and presentations. This standard was developed by the industry consortium OASIS and is set to a version of XML originally created by OpenOffice.org .

The standard has been developed by various public organizations, is publicly accessible, and can be implemented by anyone without restrictions. The OpenDocument format was created to provide an alternative? Open? formats to owners formats including the popular DOC , XLS and PPT used by Microsoft Office As well as the size of Microsoft Office Open XML . Organizations and individuals that store their data in open format such as OpenDocument avoid being tied to a single software vendor, leaving them free to switch software if their current software’s manufacturer were to exit the market, raise prices, change the software or change its terms of licensing for something less favorable.

OpenDocument is the only standard for editable documents productivity of office which has been verified by an independent body for the standards and acknowledged, has been adopted by different manufacturers, and can be adopted by any provider (including vendors and developers of proprietary software using the GNU GPL ).

Implications for public policy

Since a goal of open formats like OpenDocument is to ensure long-term access to data without legal or technical barriers, public administrations and governments have become increasingly aware of open formats such as issues affecting public policy.

In 2002 , Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, a lawyer and representative in Congress of the Republic of Peru, wrote a letter to Microsoft Peru, raising questions about the? free and permanent access to documents with proprietary formats. At the beginning of 2005 , Eric Kriss , Secretary of? Administration and Finance in Massachusetts , Was the first member of a government of a state in the United States link open standards with an aim of public policy: "It is the obligation of the priority that the American democratic system we can not have our public documents bound in some sort of proprietary format, maybe not viewable in the future, or subject to a licensing system that restricts the owner? access. " [1]

Subsequently, in September 2005 , Massachusetts became the first state to formally assume OpenDocument formats for its public records and, at the same time, reject the format of Microsoft XML, now called Microsoft Office Open XML format (see WordprocessingML ). This decision was taken after an examination of the file formats that lasted two years, entertaining at the same time many discussions with Microsoft. Microsoft Office , Which has almost 100% of market share from state employees, currently does not support the OpenDocument Format. Microsoft has provisionally indicated that the OpenDocument Format will not be recognized in the new versions of Office, which also support many other formats (including ASCII , RTF , And WordPerfect ), analysts believe it would be easy for Microsoft to implement the standard. The implications of the failure to implement OpenDocument? Inside of the office suite, Microsoft may be negative even if the same standard is affirmed.

After? Listing of Massachusetts to support the OpenDocument format, many people and organizations have expressed opinions about this policy, both for and against. Adobe, Corel, IBM and Sun have sent letters supporting the Massachusetts decision. By contrast, Microsoft sent a letter strongly critical of the measure. A group called? Citizens against Government Waste? (Citizens Against Government Waste - CAGW) has opposed the decision. The group argued that this policy of Massachusetts established "an arbitrary preference towards? Open source, although both the software, open source and proprietary, to meet the requirements, and both types of developers are involved in creating the standards. Many have considered this statement as a simple press release from Microsoft, and Linux Weekly News InternetNews noted that CAGW has received funding from Microsoft, and that in 2001 the CAGW has sent two letters in support of Microsoft's anti-trust court case of Microsoft and found that those letters were turned out to be? signed? from dead people.

According to the OASIS OpenDocument datasheet, "the Ministry of Defence of Singapore, the French Ministry of Finance and its Ministry of? Economics, Finance and Industry, the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the City of Monaco in Germany, the Bristol City Council in the United Kingdom, and the city of Vienna in Austria are taking all applications that support OpenDocument.

OpenDocument has been signed by the European Commission. L? European Union recommended as the basis for OpenDocument file format standard and for the exchange of documents. It was also recommended that the standard used for documents should be determined in terms of what will become the international standard. OpenDocument is already a standard according to an independent body recognized by the standards (OASIS), and was submitted to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) for the standardization, but not c? Is proof that the old or the Microsoft XML formats DOC / PPT / XLS will undergo this process. L? ISO approved OpenDocument and accepted on May 1 2006 (ISO 26300), and many now expect the European Union / soon require OpenDocument as a standard for office productivity documents of the European Union /.

Standardization

From January 25 2007 OpenDocument has become a standard Italian, issued by UNI / UNINFO with the UNI CEI ISO / IEC 26300 (press here UNI / UNINFO , here on the standard card , available in electronic form).

Version 1.0 of the OpenDocument specification was developed after lengthy discussions and development by various organizations. The first official OASIS meeting to discuss the standard occurred on December 16 2002 ; OASIS approved OpenDocument as an OASIS standard on May 1 2005 . The group decided to erect it on a previous version of OpenOffice.org format, since this is already an XML format with the most desired properties. Note that OpenDocument is not the same old format of OpenOffice.org, have been introduced many changes and experiences in the field, based on feedback provided by many individual users and organizations.

The standardization process involved the development of many integrated products for the office or related systems for documents, including (in alphabetical order):

• Adobe ( Framemaker , Distiller )
• Arbortext (Arbortext Enterprise Publishing System)
• Corel ( Word Perfect )
• eLawOffice.it Management GNU GPL for the law firm
• IBM ( Lotus 1-2-3 , Workplace)
• IGSuite web-based groupware suite and GPLed
• KDE ( KOffice )
• SpeedLegal (SmartPrecedent enterprise document assembly system) is the product that the company subsequently changed its name to Exar .
• Sun Microsystems / OpenOffice.org (StarOffice / OpenOffice.org)

Absent was the excellent Microsoft, especially since Microsoft is a member of OASIS and leading seller of office suite software.

This occurred despite the absence of the request of the TAC (Telematics Between Administrations Committee) of the European Union /, that the May 25 2004 had recommended to "industrial players not currently involved in the OASIS Open Document Format consider to take part in the standardization process in order to encourage a broader consensus of? industry around that size." In contrast, Microsoft has decided to develop its own format only incompatible with the OpenDocument format, without injections or revisions from? Outside. Microsoft provides an open source software to convert files from OpenDocument format to OpenXML and vice versa. Because of? Absence of widespread public and independent review of the size of Microsoft, many speculate that the size of Microsoft will be more difficult to implement for others, or that the format of Microsoft lacks important features compared to OpenDocument.

The OpenDocument format, after being subjected to many months? ISO / IEC standardization, was found to have no negative votes on May 2 2006 and is now known as ISO / IEC 26300, published on November 30 2006 .

Subsequently, the January 25 2007 UNI is now standard with the standard UNI CEI ISO / IEC 26300

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Details

The extensions of file and the related MIME types are included in the official standard by OASIS released on May 1 2005 .

Documents [ Amendment ]

As for OpenDocument documents, the most common extensions are:

• . Odt - text documents;
• . Ods - spreadsheets;
• . Odp - presentations;
• . Odg - graphics;
• . Odb - database.

Note how each extension has shared the first two letters (or is about to OpenDocument) and uses a third letter to identify the type (t for text, spreadsheets for s and so on), allowing for easy storage. The following table, we find the MIME type associated with the types of files OpenDocument:

Template

OpenDocument also supports templates. A template contains formatting and style information of the document but not the contents of the document. Even for the extensions of the same rule described template for those documents: the first two letters are common to all templates (ot, OpenDocument template), the third is on the individual types of templates. The following table summarizes them all:

Features

It is therefore clear that OpenDocument can create text documents (such as those usually edited using an ordinary word processor), spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, images, charts, formulas, databases and document templates (which can be combined various sizes) and, of course, create a template for many of them.

The official standard? Concerning OASIS OpenDocument defines all abilities. Haumacher ( 2005 ) Provides a formal specification for hyperlinks, and Eisenberg ( 2005 ) Focuses l? Attention to the format in more detail.

The following text summarizes all the features of the format.

Metadata

The OpenDocument format supports metadata (Information about the data) through a set of predefined metadata elemenenti, while maintaining the option for? User to create custom items. I have meted prededefiniti: Generator, Title, Description, Subject, Keywords, Initial Creator, Creator, Printed By, Creation Date and Time, Modification Date and Time, Date and Time Print, Document Template, Automatic Reload, Hyperlink Behavior, Language, Editing Cycles, Duration Editing and Document Statistics.

Content

The OpenDocument text format supports both traditional and advanced features: You can create different levels of headings, lists of different types (numbered or not), numbered paragraphs, keep track of changes. You may use the sequence of pages and section attributes to control text wrapping. Hyperlinks Ruby text (providing annotations and is essential for some language), bookmarks and references are too? They supported, along with mechanisms for automatic generation of tables, such as tables of contents, indexes, bibliographies and so on.

An example of a set of tables in the OpenDocument format are without doubt the spreadsheet, you can then format the tables el? Entire spreadsheet in the desired manner, thanks to the great features offered by the format. Portions of databases, filters, data pilots (the equivalent of Excel pivot tables) are supported and you can see all changes made to the document.

The graphic format supports vector representation, where you can define a layer group and its contents. You can achieve different shapes (rectangles, lines, regular polygons and circles and ellipses, paths, polylines, connectors) and create new ones, it is also possible to use 3D shapes, such as scenes, lights, cubes, spheres and rotation. Obviously this is not enough to create 3D scenes in movies or otherwise processed, but it is more than enough for personal documents or for? Office.

Presentations can be enhanced with animations that allow you to control sounds, shapes and text, then hiding and showing only what you want. In OpenDocument, many opportunities are reused by formatting text-formatting system, and facilitates? Implementation.

The format allows you to create graphic images to show numerical data, with the ability to enter titles, subtitles, captions and comments. The format defines the set of data to be used for graphing and many types of charts (Line, pie, etc.).

Forms are also supported, thanks to? XForms implementation of existing standards.

Formatting

You can perform multiple operations on style and formatting, thanks to the versatility of the format.

The page layout is determined by a variety of attributes, such as: page size, numbering format, paper feed, print orientation, margins, borders (with its thickness), padding, shadows, background, columns, order print pages, first page number, scale, centering the table, the maximum height and its footnote separator.

Head and foot of the page may vary in size and can be customized with margins, borders, backgrounds, shadows etc..

There are many attributes to text, paragraphs, text, ruby, sections, tables, columns, lists, and fills. Each character can have a specific font, from size and its a whole set of other properties. You can determine the vertical space of sections through attributes such as hold together, widows and orphans, and by other attributes such as remove case you can assign special formatting. The list is long, a look at the guidance of the standard will provide more details.

Formulas in spreadsheets

OpenDocument with mathematical formulas that appear on the screen can also be described by all? Attribute table: formula. The format also allows you to change all that wealth of information typically included in a style sheet, such as sizes and pivot tables.

Some criticisms have been made to the syntax given in the table: formula, which is accused of not being highly detailed. In the OpenDocument 1.0 specification formulas are described through a series of simple examples (define a range of data, use the Sum () function, and so on), their concerns focus on this, as some say is needed for specific functions in spreadsheets more detailed and precise, which describes the syntax and semantics, and it alongside some demonstration examples. The organizing committee of? OpenDocument has countered by saying that everything is alien to its purposes, as the syntax of such formulas is not in XML, and otherwise l? Use of the formulas is very simple, since many of them are based on other now in use for several years in many types of spreadsheets. The ability to easily read the source code (because, we repeat, the public) and ease of comprehension? XML output is pushing various groups and organizations toward creating a clearer and more detailed specification that defines what can be included in a formula and what does not. All this of course does not invalidate what has been done so far in the creation of the OpenDocument standard.

All? Internal format

An OpenDocument file can be either a simple XML file that uses <office:document> as the root element or a Jar archive containing a set of files and folders. Given the? Impossible to define or binary content directly through the thumbnails? XML, we tend to prefer the format based on the archives Jar. To support this statement c? Is the possibility that some applications that use ODF do not support saving and loading the XML file only (which is obviously not the case with Jar files). L? Compression algorithm makes it very simple files created with OpenDocument significance of the smaller size? Equivalent files created with Microsoft Office, detail should not be underestimated, especially by those companies who need to keep a large number of files for a long period or that are in the position of having to exchange files over the network without increasing traffic. Once unzipped, the majority of data contained in XML files that can be easily interpreted and edited as you would with any other XML file. This may include folders that contain pictures and sounds in different formats respectively from? SVG and SMIL, and any other file type that is contained in a document, but that is not in XML.

Thanks to? Large specific compression format used, it is possible for a user to extract the files and edit them manually, this allows, for example, repair of corrupted files or any advanced level of manipulation. Obviously you very much for your user to define a preferred compression level, perhaps using other programs to compress files. This, combined all? Use of the programs? Optimizing image size, allows? Further reduction of 40% of the space occupied by the file.

OpenDocument provides a separation between content, layout and well-defined metadata (for a description of major components, see the following). All? Inside the compressed file are in fact the following files and folders:

• XML file:
  • content.xml
  • meta.xml
  • settings.xml
  • styles.xml
• Other files:
  • mimetype
• Folders:
  • META-INF /
  • Thumbnails /

The XML file formats are created using the plus language Relax NG, which allows the definition of XML schemas. This language is too? Defined by a specification of it? OASIS and is also contained in the standard ISO / IEC 19757: Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL).

content.xml

content.xml file is without doubt the most important of which are located in? archive. In it you will find the contents of the document (with the exception of binary data such as images). The basic format is inspired by all? And HTML, although it is more complicated, it is still easy to interpret by Dell user:

  <text:h text:style-name="Heading_2"> This is a title </ text: h> 
  <text:p text:style-name="Text_body"> 
  This is a paragraph.  The formatting information is 
  Text found in body-style.  The following empty tag text: p 
  an empty paragraph (a line with no characters). 
  </ Text: p> 
  <text:p text:style-name="Text_body"/> 

styles.xml

styles.xml contains the most information about the style (a small portion is in fact contained in content.xml). The style types include:

• Paragraph styles
• Style pages
• Font style
• Frame Style
• Style list

Any work on the formatting in this file.

meta.xml

meta.xml contains the metadata file (eg.: author or last change). The content is more or less like this:

  <meta:creation-date> 2003-09-10T15: 31:11 </ meta: creation-date> 
  <dc:creator> Daniel Carrera </ dc: creator> 
  <dc:date> 2005-06-29T22: 02:06 </ dc: date> 
  <dc:language> es-ES </ dc: language> 
  <Meta: document-statistic 
  meta: table-count = "6" meta: object-count = "0" 
  meta: page-count = "59" meta: paragraph-count = "676" 
  meta: image-count = "2" meta: word-count = "16701" 
  meta: character-count = "98757" /> 

<dc:?> Tag names are defined in the standard XML Dublin Core .

settings.xml

settings.xml contains information such as the zoom factor or the position of Curson, or any information that they have nothing to do with the content or layout.

mimetype (file)

mimetype is a simple one-line file containing the mime type of the document is necessary because the simple extension of the file is not enough to make the file recognizable, being just a simple way to allow all? user to quickly locate the file.

Working with existing formats

The OpenDocument standard is designed to be used exclusively as described by the XML standard, and create new tag only when the existing standards do not implement the required functionality. As we have seen, DublinCore OpenDocument uses for metadata, MathML for formulas, SVG for vector graphics, SMIL for multimedia, etc..