Re: FYI: KOffice will switch to OpenOffice.org file format

From: Alan Horkan (horkana@maths.tcd.ie)
Date: Thu Aug 28 2003 - 11:22:55 EDT

  • Next message: Dom Lachowicz: "Re: FYI: KOffice will switch to OpenOffice.org file format"

    On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Erwin Tenhumberg wrote:

    > Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:56:36 -0700
    > From: Erwin Tenhumberg <erwin.tenhumberg@Sun.COM>
    > To: abiword-dev@abisource.com
    > Subject: FYI: KOffice will switch to OpenOffice.org file format
    >
    > KOffice will switch to OpenOffice.org file format
    > -------------------------------------------------
    > "We will switch to the OASIS (OpenOffice.org) file format
    > for all the major applications. This has many advantages:
    >
    > * file format shared with the OpenOffice.org suite,
    > we don't have to reinvent the wheel

    yay!

    > * we'll be able to drop our OOo import filters and
    > use the export filters as a compatibility layer for
    > older KOffice versions documents
    > * we can actively participate in the standard file
    > format creation in the the case of Kexi and Kugar

    http://www.koffice.org/kexi/
    Kexi is new (at least to me) it is a database frontend.

    the description page for Kugar is very sparse
    http://www.koffice.org/kugar/index.php
    but from this page it seems to be a report tool
    http://www.thekompany.com/projects/kugar/

    > which are applications that don't currently exist
    > in OOo
    >
    > This is also a good opportunity to switch the names of
    > our MIME types to the vnd.kde... naming scheme and to
    > drop our KOffice-specific file extensions. It's again

    KOffice specific extensions.
    very important to note that carefully.

    > the users who will benefit from this step, e.g. on
    > Windows it will be possible to open files created with
    > a KOffice application using the OpenOffice.org suite."
    >
    > http://dot.kde.org/1061919133/

    http://abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2003/Apr/0161.html

    Abiword and the OASIS/OpenOffice file formats have been brought up a few
    times, the most recent one that I can remember is as a result of questions
    from Marco Fioretti see the above link. (I have CC'ed him as he may no
    longer be subscribed to the list).

    Users can specify the default file format in Abiword to be any format of
    their choosing (may require editing a configuration file, I dont remember
    it being in the Graphical user interface), similar to how Ximian chose to
    specify Microsoft Word .doc as their default in their version of
    OpenOffice.

    This option will hopefully be enough in most cases.

    Dom Lachowicz of course explains the situation thoroughly and clearly so I
    wont even attempt to summarize or paraphrase
    http://abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2003/Apr/0167.html

    Will Lachance (libwpd maintainer) adds some technical detail which might
    be of interest, and makes the important note that OpenOffice support in
    Abiword could be substantially improved in not too many programmer hours.
    http://abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2003/Apr/0183.html

    Developers interested in improving any part of Abiword are always welcome
    and help is always available on this list.

    Sincerely

    Alan Horkan
    http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/



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