Pen - Credit: mshades on Flickr (CC BY)
ODF and PDF will be officially apart of Microsoft Office on April 28th.
In a post this afternoon in an unusual location — the Microsoft Update blog rather than the Office blog — the company officially gave its heads-up message that Office 2007 SP2 will be officially released in two weeks, on April 28. In it, users will have the ability to export their open OOXML and “compatibility mode” documents to Open Document Format and to Adobe’s PDF format, in the company’s first implemented stage of its support for alternate and interoperable document formats.
This will not yet be the same as adopting .ODT documents, .ODS spreadsheets, and .ODP presentations as alternate standard formats for Office applications — that feature is coming in the next edition of the suite, now due sometime next year. Up to now, the ability for Office 2007 apps to save to PDF and to XPS — Microsoft’s own try at an interoperable display format — has been available as a downloadable add-in. Now, that functionality will be available to new users without the add-in needing to be installed.
When I used to send people .docs, my free software conscience hurt. When I sent them .odts, my social conscience hurt. Now I can send documents without feeling guilty! Yay!