BP305 - The document format dance

This session went over the various differences betweed ODF, OOXML and PDF formats.

At the heart, all three are XML driven and all are ISO standards. PDF is the clear winner for read-only content and archiving, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be adopted straight away.

For editable content, there is currently no clear choice between ODF and OOXML, and most programs do, or soon will, support both.

The speaker suggested that OOXML has a lot of support in the US, being Microsoft sponsored. ODF is the preferred format in Europe at the moment, so it could end up with ODF being the de facto standard for non-US companies.

Microsoft, of course, support the ECMA stardard OOXML, but not the later ISO standard (there were some alterations) and support for that won't come until Office 14. Interestingly Apple's iPhone editor also uses OOXML.

Lotus Symphony uses ODF, as does OpenOffice/Star Office as well as Google Docs.

So, the key take-aways from this is to use PDF for read only stuff, use XML where you can and ultimately keep your options open either way.