Microsoft ODF 1.1 Support (was RE: [tdf-discuss] ignore m$ legacy?)

I don't find it credible that Microsoft would intentionally deviate in ways to "break" a format, 
considering the level of scrutiny they receive from regulatory authorities and everyone else.

I find it more creditable that they didn't do a terrific job in their first effort and it might not 
have been something the developers were keen about.  But I have no way of knowing nor of knowing 
the difficulties there are for mapping in and out of their own internal processing model.  They 
obviously can't support a feature that the native application can't support (as is the case for 
LibreOffice as well, of course).

In any case, Microsoft produced public implementation notes about their support for ODF 1.1 in 
Office 2007 (it was SP2, not the SP1 I mentioned in another message).  There are also 
implementation notes for Office 2010 support of ODF (and OOXML, etc.).
 
My old links to the Implementation Notes failed me yesterday, but I've now learned that they've 
moved!  (Deep linking into microsoft.com, even searching into microsoft.com, is one of my more 
frustrating experiences.)

Here is relevant information for those interested in the details:

<http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmahugh/archive/2008/12/16/odf-implementation-notes-for-office-2007-sp2.aspx>
 is a December 2008 blog post about the original implementation notes and their purpose.  (There 
are similar notes for OOXML.)

<http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmahugh/archive/2011/07/13/new-dii-website-locations.aspx> explains the 
change in location and format.

The actual notes are here:
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee908651.aspx>
You can get a PDF or you can get a Zip that has *all* of the Microsoft Office standards 
implementations and also disclosure of the formats, etc.  There are two versions of the notes for 
ODF, one for Office 2007, one for Office 2010.

What I'd like to point out about these implementation notes is (1) they are a fledgling effort and 
could use a lot more work too, but (2) these seem to be the only ODF implementation notes that 
*anyone* has ever produced.  They are nailed to the ODF specification. 

 - Dennis

DIGGING DEEPER

On the web site you can explore the implementation notes for Office 2010 ODF on-line.

If you go into 2 Conformance Statements in the sidebar contents, you can then go into 2.1 Normative 
Variations.  

If you get to 2.1.209 Section 8.1.3, Table Cell, you'll see that table:formula is not supported in 
table cells of Word documents (and I suspect the same is true for LibreOffice Write document).  
(The table:formula attribute is an optional attribute on any ODF table cell.)

Here is the text about table:formula for Excel 2010:

"iii. The standard defines the attribute table:formula, contained within the element 
<table:table-cell>, contained within the parent element <office:spreadsheet \ table:table-row>

"This attribute is supported in core Excel 2010.


"When saving the table:formula attribute, Excel 2010 precedes the formula string with the "msoxl" 
namespace.

"When saving the table:formula attribute, Excel 2010 saves a formula string that follows 
[ISO/IEC-29500-1] section 18.17, except workbook-names are written as literal values instead of 
tokens given the lack of a relationship part.

"When loading the attribute table:formula, Excel 2010 first looks at the namespace. If the 
namespace is “msoxl”, Excel 2010 will load the value of table:formula as a formula in Excel 2010.

"When loading the table:formula attribute, if the namespace is missing or unknown, the 
table:formula attribute is not loaded, and the value “office:value” is used instead. If the result 
of the formula is an error, Excel 2010 loads the <text:p> element and maps the element to an Error 
data type. Error data types that Excel 2010 does not support are mapped to #VALUE!"

Note that the formula syntax and semantics used is defined in the OOXML standard (IS 29500).


-----Original Message-----
From: e-letter [mailto:inpost@gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 07:33
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] ignore m$ legacy?

On 21/07/2011, Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamilton@acm.org> wrote:
> Yes, don't confuse ODF compatibility with OpenOffice.org (or LibreOffice)
> compatibility.  I was in the room on one occasion when Microsoft was asking
> for advice on their approach to ODF 1.1 Spreadsheet documents.
>
> Unfortunately, none of us blinked about how this would work for users who
> are unaware that ODF 1.1 has no standard for calculation formulas but think
> that OpenOffice.org Calc is the standard.
>
> I don't believe that ODF support was "broken."  The ODF support in Office
> 2007 is the first time that integrated ODF support appeared in Microsoft
> Office.  I know there are bugs, some of them rather
> surprising/disappointing.

Or deliberate..?

[ ... ]


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