File Format Confusion

The "native" text file format for earlier versions of OOo and its predecessor, StarOffice, was .sxw, the StarWriter format. OOo 2.0 uses the Open Document Format, developed by the international Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

The following table shows the standard extensions for documents saved in Open Document Format.

File Type	Extension	MIME Type
Text	.odt	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
Spreadsheet	.ods	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet
Presentation	.odp	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation
Drawing	.odg	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics
Chart	.odc	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.chart
Formula	.odf	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.formula
Database	.odb	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.database
Image	.odi	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.image
Master document	.odm	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text-master

Almost all open source office software released since the summer of 2005 uses this standard file format and its standard extensions (such as .odt and .ods). As of mid-2005, Microsoft had not announced whether it would include the ability to read and write OASIS-approved file formats in its next release of Microsoft Office. A growing number of government agencies around the world are starting to require the use of open, nonproprietary file formats in any software they buy, but Microsoft may stick with its own proprietary formats anyway. For the foreseeable future, it is likely that anyone sharing files with Microsoft Office users will need to save their documents in Microsoft formats. This is a simple task. File > Save As offers many format choices, including both current and older Microsoft-proprietary ones.

21 OOo file format choices.

Another file choice OOo gives you is to "export" files by using File > Save As > Export. Early versions of OOo 2 (including the one on this book's program CD) offer only two export choices: PDF, which saves your document exactly as it looks when you print it, and XHTML, (currently) the latest format for Web publishing.

File export choices.

Yes, it would be nice if all the software publishersincluding Microsoftcame up with a standard format so that every program could create, open, and edit files created in any other program, but that's as unlikely to happen as all car manufacturers putting the heater controls in the same place. So we deal with the problem as best we can, and OOowith a total of 23 file-type choiceshelps us deal with it better than most office software.

As a general rule, it's best to save your work in the native OOo file format and then resave it in a different format only if you need to share it with friends or coworkers who use OASIS-incompatible software. Note, too, that you need to ask what file formatsor at least what softwareyour friends use so that you can pick the format that suits them best.

Of course, the best solution is to get as many friends and coworkers as possible to use OOo. Since it's free software, and you now know how to install it and set it up so that you can help them do their own installations, it shouldn't be hard to get at least some of them to switch.