Office software: November 2008 Archives

IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) announced the launch of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) Toolkit Union, a new open-source software community project. The ODF Toolkit will use an initial software code contribution from Sun to provide developers with an Application Programming Interface (API) for reading, writing and manipulating ODF documents. One part of the initial code contribution is an ODF Validator, a tool that validates OpenDocument files and checks certain conformance criteria. The Toolkit targets developers who want to create new applications and solutions ranging from content management, business workflows and activities to Web-based document solutions. The ODF Toolkit Union will complement other industry efforts such as the ODF standardization work done at the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The ODF Toolkit open source software project is established at http://odftoolkit.org

Google announced they now support Microsoft Office OOXML (Office Open XML) files in Gmail and web search. This means you can now view documents created using Microsoft Office 2007: .docx documents, .xslx spreadsheets and .pptx presentations as HTML. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/11/view-as-html-office-open-xml-files.html