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The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an
open file format An open file format is a file format for storing digital data, defined by an openly published specification usually maintained by a standards organization, and which can be used and implemented by anyone. Open file format is licensed with open li ...
for
word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
documents,
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...
s,
presentations A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Present ...
and graphics and using ZIP-compressed
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
files. It was developed with the aim of providing an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications. It is also the default format for documents in typical
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s. The standard is developed and maintained by a technical committee in the
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS; ) is a nonprofit consortium that works on the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for cybersecurity, blockchain, Internet of things (IoT), ...
(OASIS) consortium. It was based on the
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
specification for
OpenOffice.org XML OpenOffice.org XML is an open XML-based file format developed as an open community effort by Sun Microsystems in 2000–2002. The open-source software application suite OpenOffice.org 1.x and StarOffice 6 and 7 used the format as their native an ...
, the default format for
OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
and
LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source productivity software, office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was fork (software development), forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of t ...
. It was originally developed for
StarOffice StarOffice is a discontinued proprietary software, proprietary office suite, intended to compete with the marketing-leading Microsoft Office. It served as the basis for open-source suites OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice. StarOffice supported the ...
"to provide an open standard for office documents." In addition to being an OASIS standard, it is published as an
ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...
/
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
international standard ISO/IEC 26300 Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument). In 2021 the current version is 1.3.


Specifications

The most common
filename extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...
s used for OpenDocument documents are: * .odt and .fodt for
word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
(text) documents * .ods and .fods for
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...
s * .odp and .fodp for
presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...
s * .odg and .fodg for
graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...
* .odf for
formula In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwee ...
, mathematical equations The original OpenDocument format consists of an
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
document that has as its
root element Each XML document has exactly one single root element. It encloses all the other elements and is, therefore, the sole parent element to all the other elements. ROOT elements are also called document elements. In HTML, the root element is the elemen ...
. OpenDocument files can also take the format of a ZIP compressed archive containing a number of files and directories; these can contain binary content and benefit from ZIP's
lossless compression Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...
to reduce file size. OpenDocument benefits from
separation of concerns In computer science, separation of concerns is a design principle for separating a computer program into distinct sections. Each section addresses a separate '' concern'', a set of information that affects the code of a computer program. A concern ...
by separating the content, styles, metadata, and application settings into four separate XML files. There is a comprehensive set of example documents in OpenDocument format available. The whole test suite is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.


History


Conception

The OpenDocument standard was developed by a Technical Committee (TC) under the
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS; ) is a nonprofit consortium that works on the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for cybersecurity, blockchain, Internet of things (IoT), ...
(OASIS) industry consortium. The ODF-TC has members from a diverse set of companies and individuals. Active TC members have voting rights. Members associated with Sun and IBM have sometimes had a large voting influence. The standardization process involved the developers of many office suites or related document systems. The first official ODF-TC meeting to discuss the standard was 16 December 2002. OASIS approved OpenDocument as an OASIS standard on 1 May 2005. OASIS submitted the ODF specification to ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) on 16 November 2005, under Publicly Available Specification (PAS) rules. ISO/IEC standardization for an open document standard including text, spreadsheet and presentation was proposed for the first time in
DKUUG The Danish UNIX systems User Group ( da, Dansk UNIX-system Bruger Gruppe, DKUUG) is a computer user group around UNIX, which was the first Internet provider in Denmark and which created and maintained the .dk internet domain for Denmark. Founded ...
28 August 2001. After a six-month review period, on 3 May 2006, OpenDocument unanimously passed its six-month DIS (Draft International Standard) ballot in
JTC 1 ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and pr ...
(
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34, Document description and processing languages is a subcommittee of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 joint technical committee, which is a collaborative effort of both the International Organization for Standardization and the International ...
), with broad participation, after which the OpenDocument specification was "approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard" under the name ISO/IEC 26300:2006. After responding to all written ballot comments, and a 30-day default ballot, the OpenDocument
international standard international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...
went to publication in ISO, officially published 30 November 2006. In 2006, Garry Edwards, a member of OASIS TC since 2002, along with Sam Hiser, and Paul "Marbux" E. Merrell founded the OpenDocument Foundation. The aim of this project was to be open-source representative of the format in OASIS. The immediate aim of this project was to develop software that would convert legacy
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
documents to ODF. By October 2007 the project was a failure: Conversion of Microsoft Office documents could not be achieved. By this time, The foundation was convinced that ODF was not moving in a direction that they supported. As a result, it announced the decision to abandon its namesake format in favor of
W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
's
Compound Document Format Compound Document Format (CDF) is a set of W3C candidate standards describing electronic compound document file formats that contains multiple formats, such as SVG, XHTML, SMIL and XForms. The core standards are the Web Integration Compound D ...
(CDF), which was in early stages of its development. The foundation, however, never acted on this decision and was soon dissolved. The CDF was never designed for this purpose either.


Further standardization

Further standardization work with OpenDocument includes: * The
OASIS In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
Committee Specificatio
OpenDocument 1.0 (second edition)
corresponds to the published ISO/IEC 26300:2006 standard. The content of ISO/IEC 26300 and OASIS OpenDocument v1.0 2nd ed. is identical. It includes the editorial changes made to address JTC1 ballot comments. It is available in ODF, HTML and PDF formats. * '
OpenDocument 1.1
'' includes additional features to address accessibility concerns. It was approved as an OASIS Standard on 2007-02-01 following a call for vote issued on 2007-01-16. The public announcement was made on 2007-02-13. This version was not initially submitted to ISO/IEC, because it is considered to be a minor update to ODF 1.0 only, and OASIS were working already on ODF 1.2 at the time ODF 1.1 was approved. However it was later submitted to ISO/IEC (as of March 2011, it was in "enquiry stage" as Draft Amendment 1 ISO/IEC 26300:2006/DAM 1) and published in March 2012 as "ISO/IEC 26300:2006/Amd 1:2012 – Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.1". * '
OpenDocument 1.2
'' includes additional accessibility features, RDF-based metadata, a spreadsheet formula specification based on OpenFormula, support for
digital signature A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for verifying the authenticity of digital messages or documents. A valid digital signature, where the prerequisites are satisfied, gives a recipient very high confidence that the message was created b ...
s and some features suggested by the public. It consists of three parts: Part 1: OpenDocument Schema, Part 2: Recalculated Formula (OpenFormula) Format and Part 3: Packages. Version 1.2 of the specification was approved as an OASIS Standard on 29 September 2011. It was submitted to the relevant ISO committee under the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) procedure in March 2014. As of October 2014, it has been unanimously approved as a Draft International Standard, some comments have been raised in process that need to be addressed before OpenDocument 1.2 can proceed to become an International Standard. OpenDocument 1.2 was published as ISO/IEC standard on 17 June 2015. * '
OpenDocument 1.3 Committee Specification
'': Version 1.3 of the OpenDocument specification was approved as an OASIS Committee Specification at the end of December 2019, permitting implementation of the new proposed standard. The specification was completed as the result of the COSM crowdfunding project seeded by
The Document Foundation The Document Foundation (TDF) is a non-profit organization that promotes open-source document handling software. It was created by members of the OpenOffice.org community to manage and develop LibreOffice, a free and open-source office suite, an ...
. In January 2020 Version 1.3 was approved. * The OASIS Advanced Document Collaboration subcommittee (created in December, 2010) is working on an update of OpenDocument change-tracking that will not only enhance the existing change-tracking feature set, but also lay the foundation for the standardization of real-time collaboration by making change tracking compatible with real-time collaboration.


Application support


Software

The OpenDocument format is used in
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
and in
proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...
. This includes
office suites Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital painting ...
(both stand-alone and web-based) and individual applications such as word-processors, spreadsheets, presentation, and data management applications. Prominent text editors, word processors and office suites supporting OpenDocument fully or partially include: *
AbiWord AbiWord () is a free and open-source software word processor. It is written in C++ and since version 3 it is based on GTK+ 3. The name "AbiWord" is derived from the root of the Spanish word "'' abierto''", meaning "open".Project MascoAbi the Ant ...
*
Adobe Buzzword Adobe Document Cloud is a service from Adobe Inc., Adobe used to store PDF, PDF files in the Cloud computing, cloud and to access them remotely. The services supports integration with Adobe tools to fill and sign forms electronically. Adobe Scan ...
*
Apache OpenOffice Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of OpenOffice.org and the designated successor of IBM Lotus Symphony. It is a close cousin of LibreOffice, Collabora Online and N ...
*
Bean (software) Bean is a word processor for Mac OS X. Originally free and open source software Bean became closed source at version 3. However, the Bean executable is still distributed free of charge. According to its author, James Hoover, Bean is not meant to ...
*
Calibre In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...
ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
viewer, converter, editor, and manager *
Calligra Suite Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite by KDE. It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones. It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics, and digital paintin ...
* Collabora Office and
Collabora Online Collabora Online is an open source online office suite that can be integrated with any web application, it is developed by Collabora Productivity, a division of Collabora. Collabora Online has LibreOffice at its core and allows for collaborative ...
*
Corel Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo (pronounced like "all you do"), is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation ( ; from the abbreviation ...
WordPerfect Office X6 *
Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...
*
Evince Evince (), also known as GNOME Document Viewer, is a free and open source document viewer supporting many document file formats including PDF, PostScript, DjVu, TIFF, XPS and DVI. It is designed for the GNOME desktop environment. The develo ...
*
Gnumeric Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program that is part of the GNOME Free Software Desktop Project. Gnumeric version 1.0 was released on 31 December 2001. Gnumeric is distributed as free software under the GNU General Public License; it is intended to r ...
*
Google Docs Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Do ...
*
IBM Lotus Symphony IBM Lotus Symphony is a discontinued suite of applications for creating, editing, and sharing text, spreadsheet, presentations, and other documents and browsing the World Wide Web. It was first distributed as commercial proprietary software, t ...
*
Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rectang ...
exports .odg *
KOffice KOffice is a free and open source office and graphics suite developed by KDE for Unix-like and Windows systems. KOffice contains a word processor ( KWord), a spreadsheet (KSpread), a presentation program ( KPresenter), and a number of other comp ...
*
LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source productivity software, office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was fork (software development), forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of t ...
*
Microsoft Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, ...
and
Office XP Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to ret ...
(with the Open Source OpenXML/ODF Translator Add-in for Office) *
Microsoft Office 2007 Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...
(with Service Pack 2 or 3) supports ODF 1.1 (Windows only) *
Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010, as the succes ...
supports ODF 1.1 (Windows only) *
Microsoft Office 2013 Microsoft Office 2013 (codenamed Office 15) is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2010 and the predecessor to Microsoft Office 2016. Unlike with Office 2010, no OS ...
supports ODF 1.2 (Windows only) *
Microsoft Office 2016 Microsoft Office 2016 (First perpetual release of Office 16) is a version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite, succeeding both Office 2013 and Office for Mac 2011 and preceding Office 2019, which in turn was succeeded by Office 2021 f ...
and
2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
support ODF 1.2 (Windows: read/write; OS X: read-only after online conversion) *
Microsoft Office 2021 Microsoft Office 2021 (Third perpetual release of Office 16) is a version of the Microsoft Office suite of applications for the Microsoft Windows and macOS operating systems. It was released on October 5, 2021, along with Windows 11, and replace ...
supports ODF 1.3 (Windows and MacOS) *
Microsoft OneDrive Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web ve ...
/
Office Web Apps Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...
*
NeoOffice NeoOffice is an office suite for the macOS operating system developed by Planamesa Inc. It is a commercial fork of the free and open source OpenOffice.org that implements most of the features of OpenOffice.org, including a word processor, spreads ...
*
Okular Okular is a multiplatform document viewer developed by the KDE community and based on Qt and KDE Frameworks libraries. It is distributed as part of the KDE Applications bundle. Its origins are from KPDF and it replaces KPDF, KGhostView, KFax, K ...
*
ONLYOFFICE OnlyOffice (formerly TeamLab), stylized as ONLYOFFICE, is a free software office suite developed by Ascensio System SIA, a subsidiary of "New Communication Technologies", a company from Russia, but headquartered in Riga, Latvia. In Russian marke ...
*
OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
*
Scribus Scribus () is free and open-source desktop publishing (DTP) software available for most desktop operating systems. It is designed for layout, typesetting, and preparation of files for professional-quality image-setting equipment. Scribus can a ...
imports .odt and .odg *
SoftMaker Office SoftMaker Office is an office suite developed since 1987 by the German company SoftMaker Software GmbH based in Nuremberg. A freeware version is released as well, under the name of SoftMaker FreeOffice. Components SoftMaker Office include ...
*
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
StarOffice StarOffice is a discontinued proprietary software, proprietary office suite, intended to compete with the marketing-leading Microsoft Office. It served as the basis for open-source suites OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice. StarOffice supported the ...
*
TextEdit TextEdit is an open-source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with macOS since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-like oper ...
*
WordPad WordPad is the basic word processor that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It is more advanced than Windows Notepad, and simpler than Microsoft Word and Microsoft Works (last updated in 2007) ...
(Windows 7 and later, Windows Server 2008 R2 and later) supports ODF 1.1 *
Zoho Office Suite Zoho Office Suite is an Indian web-based online office suite containing word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, web conferencing, customer relationship management (CRM), project management, invoicing and othe ...
Various organizations have announced development of conversion software (including ''plugins'' and ''filters'') to support OpenDocument on
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's products. , there are nine packages of conversion software. Microsoft first released support for the OpenDocument Format in Office 2007 SP2. However, the implementation faced substantial criticism and the
ODF Alliance The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
and others claimed that the third party plugins provided better support. Microsoft Office 2010 can open and save OpenDocument Format documents natively, although not all features are supported. Starting with Mac OS X 10.5, the
TextEdit TextEdit is an open-source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with macOS since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-like oper ...
application and
Quick Look Quick Look is a quick preview feature developed by Apple Inc. which was introduced in its operating system Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The feature was announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Jun. 11, 2007. While macOS's Finder has alway ...
preview feature support the OpenDocument Text format.


Accessibility


Licensing


Public access to the standard

Versions of the OpenDocument Format approved by
OASIS In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...
are available for free download and use. The ITTF has added ISO/IEC 26300 to its "list of freely available standards"; anyone may download and use this standard free-of-charge under the terms of a click-through license.


Additional royalty-free licensing

Obligated members of the OASIS ODF TC have agreed to make deliverables available to implementors under the OASIS Royalty Free with Limited Term
policy
Key contributor
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
made an irrevocable intellectual property covenant, providing all implementers with the guarantee that Sun will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the OpenDocument specification in which development Sun participates to the point of incurring an obligation. A second contributor to ODF development, IBM – which, for instance, has contributed Lotus spreadsheet documentation – has made their patent rights available through their'' Interoperability Specifications Pledge'' in which "IBM irrevocably covenants to you that it will not assert any Necessary Claims against you for your making, using, importing, selling, or offering for sale Covered Implementations." The
Software Freedom Law Center The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is an organization that provides ''pro bono'' legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen a ...
ha
examined
whether there are any legal barriers to the use of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) in free and open source software arising from the standardization process. In their opinion ODF is free of legal encumbrances that would prevent its use in free and open source software, as distributed under licenses authored by Apache and the FSF.


Response


Support for OpenDocument

Several governments, companies, organizations and software products support the OpenDocument format. For example: * The OpenDoc Society runs frequent
ODF Plugfest The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
s in association with industry groups and Public Sector organisations. The 10th Plugfest was hosted by the UK
Government Digital Service The Government Digital Service is a unit of the Government of the United Kingdom's Cabinet Office tasked with transforming the provision of online public services. It was formed in April 2011 to implement the "Digital by Default" strategy prop ...
in conjunction with industry associations including the
OpenForum Europe OpenForum Europe (OFE) is a European open source software and open standard not-for-profit think tank. Its key objective is to contribute to achieve an open and competitive digital ecosystem in Europe. Based in Brussels, it launched its operat ...
and OpenUK (formerly Open Source Consortium). ** An output of the 10th Plugfest was an ODF toolkit which includes "Open Document Format principles for Government Technology" that has the purpose of simply explaining the case for ODF directed at the "average civil servant" and includes an extract from the UK Government policy relating to Open Document Format. ** The toolkit also includes a single page graphical image designed to articulate the consequences of not choosing Open Document Format. The illustration has now been translated into more than 10 languages. * Information technology companies like
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
,
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
,
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
, IBM,
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
,
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
,
Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...
,
Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...
,
Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...
as well as other companies who may or may not be working inside the OASIS OpenDocument Adoption Technical Committee. * Over 600 companies and organizations promote OpenDocument format through The OpenDocument Format Alliance. *
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
with its 26 members uses ODF as a mandatory standard for all members. * The TAC (Telematics between Administrations Committee), composed of e-government policy-makers from the 25
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
Member States, endorsed a set of recommendations for promoting the use of open document formats in the public sector. * The free office suites
Apache OpenOffice Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of OpenOffice.org and the designated successor of IBM Lotus Symphony. It is a close cousin of LibreOffice, Collabora Online and N ...
,
Calligra Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite by KDE. It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones. It contains applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics, and digital paintin ...
,
KOffice KOffice is a free and open source office and graphics suite developed by KDE for Unix-like and Windows systems. KOffice contains a word processor ( KWord), a spreadsheet (KSpread), a presentation program ( KPresenter), and a number of other comp ...
,
NeoOffice NeoOffice is an office suite for the macOS operating system developed by Planamesa Inc. It is a commercial fork of the free and open source OpenOffice.org that implements most of the features of OpenOffice.org, including a word processor, spreads ...
and
LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source productivity software, office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was fork (software development), forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of t ...
all use OpenDocument as their default file format. * Several organisations, such as th
OpenDocument Fellowship
an
OpenDoc Society
were founded to support and promote OpenDocument. * The UK government has adopted ODF as the standard for all documents in the UK civil service * The Russian government has recommended adopting ODF as the standard in the public sector as by GOST R ISO/MEK 26300-2010 * The
Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
supports ODF export from
MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki ...
, which powers
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
and a number of other Internet
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
-based sites. * The default text processing applications in Windows 10 (
WordPad WordPad is the basic word processor that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It is more advanced than Windows Notepad, and simpler than Microsoft Word and Microsoft Works (last updated in 2007) ...
) and Mac OS 10.9 (
TextEdit TextEdit is an open-source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with macOS since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-like oper ...
) support OpenDocument Text. On 4 November 2005, IBM and Sun Microsystems convened the "OpenDocument (ODF) Summit" in
Armonk, New York Armonk is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the town of North Castle, located in Westchester County, New York, United States. The corporate headquarters of IBM are located in Armonk. Geography and climate As of the 2010 census, A ...
, to discuss how to boost OpenDocument adoption. The ODF Summit brought together representatives from several industry groups and technology companies, including Oracle, Google, Adobe, Novell, Red Hat, Computer Associates, Corel, Nokia, Intel, and Linux e-mail company Scalix (LaMonica, 10 November 2005). The providers committed resources to technically improve OpenDocument through existing standards bodies and to promote its usage in the marketplace, possibly through a stand-alone foundation. Scholars have suggested that the "OpenDocument standard is the wedge that can hold open the door for competition, particularly with regard to the specific concerns of the public sector." Indeed, adoption by the public sector has risen considerably since the promulgation of the OpenDocument format initiated the 2005/2006 time period. * Different applications using ODF as a standard document format have different methods of providing macro/scripting capabilities. There is no
macro language In computer programming, a macro (short for "macro instruction"; ) is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input should be mapped to a replacement output. Applying a macro to an input is known as macro expansion. The input and output ...
specified in ODF. Users and developers differ on whether inclusion of a standard scripting language would be desirable. * The ODF specification for tracked changes is limited and does not fully specify all cases, resulting in implementation-specific behaviors. In addition, OpenDocument does not support change tracking in elements like tables or
MathML Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web ...
. * It is not permitted to use generic ODF formatting style elements (like font information) for the MathML elements.


Adoption

One objective of open formats like OpenDocument is to guarantee long-term access to data without legal or technical barriers, and some governments have come to view open formats as a public policy issue. Several governments around the world have introduced policies of partial or complete adoption. What this means varies from case to case; in some cases, it means that the ODF standard has a national standard identifier; in some cases, it means that the ODF standard is permitted to be used where national regulation says that non-proprietary formats must be used, and in still other cases, it means that some government body has actually decided that ODF will be used in some specific context. The following is an incomplete list: * International **
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
**
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
*
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
*
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
*
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
*
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...
*
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
*
Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...
*
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
*
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
*
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
*
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
*
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
*
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
*
Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
*
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
*
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
*
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
*
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
* Portugal * Russia * Slovakia * Sweden * Serbia * South Africa * South Korea * Switzerland * Taiwan * Turkey * United Kingdom * Uruguay * Venezuela * Subnational ** Andalusia, Spain ** Assam, India ** Extremadura, Spain ** Hong Kong, China ** Kerala, India ** Massachusetts, United States ** Misiones, Argentina ** Munich, Bavaria, Germany ** Paraná (state), Paraná, Brazil


See also

* OpenDocument technical specification * Comparison of Office Open XML and OpenDocument * Comparison of document markup languages * List of document markup languages * OpenDocument software * Standardization of Office Open XML#Reactions to standardization, Reactions to Microsoft lobbying at ISO


Notes


References


External links

*
OpenDocumentFormat.org
Portal for consumers, business users, and developers with information on OpenDocument format.


OpenDoc Society
Association with members around the world that promote best practices in office productivity such as OpenDocument format.
OpenDocument Fellowship
Volunteer organization with members around the world to promote the adoption, use, and development of the OpenDocument format.
OpenDocument XML.org
The official community gathering place and information resource for the OpenDocument OASIS Standard (ISO/IEC 26300).
OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee
coordinates the OpenDocument development and is the official source for specifications, schemas, etc.


Microsoft Office (2007, 2010 and 2013), Differences between the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format and the Word (.docx) format
* https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/pc-crashes-randomly/b1c93c5f-8733-490f-b681-ad5a08a24623 {{Authority control OpenDocument, Computer file formats Document-centric XML-based standards ISO/IEC 26300 Open standards Open file formats Office document file formats Markup languages OpenOffice