The Foundation sees this as a contradiction to the EU’s own interoperability goals. Although XLSX is standardized as OOXML according to ISO/IEC 29500, Microsoft’s implementations often deviate from the specifications. Furthermore, features often change undocumented, which complicates compatibility with open-source software such as LibreOffice.
I kinda get it though. I think every single time in my life I’ve sent a document in the non-Microsoft format I’ve got a reply saying they couldn’t open it. That’s from LibreOffice and from Mac.
And everytime I get a document in a Microsoft format I send a reply asking if this or that is supposed to look that way or be that value. Yet it’s the open format and tools that’s an issue somehow.
That is supposed to be even with Microsoft office, because it changes the fonts without warning and adjusts the margins according to the default printer. It’s not a format designed to be shared with other people
One thing I do like from LibreOffice is the ability to save to PDF but also embed the original document inside it.
That way almost anyone can see it as intended, and the original is still there for editing.
Trying to get tech illiterate people to use LibreOffice and to export their documents as PDF but they just keep sending the original files every single time… nightmare material
“Don’t use that proprietary format ! Use PDF instead !”
PDF is also an issue.
There are often also accessibility issues with PDF files depending on how they were created.
For best results, print your word doc and scan it back in on a flatbet scanner. Fun fact you don’t even need to keep the piece of paper square to the scanner.
Or just take a picture of your monitor and text it.
Unrelated anecdote, my brother’s then wife post a picture of them on Facebook. Our aunt saw it, took a picture of her monitor with her phone, went to the store to have them print the photo out on photo paper, and then mailed it to my brother.
So he got his original photo back, but at a greatly reduced quality and with monitor glare added!
Hire a barbershop quartet to sing it to them.
PDF can be opened anywhere, that’s my point.
* Only if you dont use the many still proprietary extensions of PDF I suppose.
Anyway I’m not sure following the Adobe standard in our institutions is the smartest move.
Not solely, but since sooooo many documents are already only available in PDF, you need to support it for backwards compat alone, plus all the people who just wouldn’t migrate their data to a new format because the old one still works for them.
I’d love if there were a true open standard with the same capabilities and support, but you’re not gonna get companies to adopt that out of the kindness of their hearts.
Do you have a better idea, pal?
This is a conversation about the issue of proprietary formats in our institutions.
And I think PDF is a problem in that regard. It’s not fully open and the format still can break. Forms in particular are still very problematics. Forms are very useful in institutions…
In college my professor wouldn’t accept pdfs for assignments because I guess he couldn’t check the metadata or make comments or something.
So I literally had to download MS office just to submit assignments in their format…
There are some people who míght learn from a ransomware attack. Only if it personally hits them, of course.
I don’t know enough to understand the connection. Can you please explain?
Ransomware attack are successful mostly against MS Active Directory and Ourlook based setups.
That’s hilarious. Big corporation apparently can’t afford basic cybersecurity. Always pinching pennies.
Anyway, any big organization should encrypt their core systems to prevent ransomware attacks. Individuals should too. It’s just good practice.
Damn, I was gonna say just use web version, but they do often have missing features compared to app, so I understand why you had to download it…
The web version is even worse! It’s all cloud-based, and you need a subscription unless your University pays for a license.
The only reason to use it would be to write things in Libre and then copy/paste them into MS and manually fix all the formatting.
I hated it, because all the professors could just smugly say “You know you have free access to Office 365 with your student email, right?”
That’s not the fucking point! I don’t give a shit if it’s free, I don’t want to use a fucking microsoft product, especially one that’s cloud-based, when there’s a perfectly good open-source alternative that I can run locally on my own hardware.
Just one of the many problems with the corporatization, commodification, and enshittification of education. If the focus was on learning and academic freedom, FOSS solutions would be encouraged. But no, you’re forced to use proprietary software, because “
reasons” capitalism…You don’t actually need a subscription for the cloud web version actually. It’s ass though.
Either the person is lying, because MS Office claims compatibility with OpenDocument files, or it isn’t actually compatible and Microsoft itself is lying.