APDIP e-Note 18 on Standards for Electronic Documents
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Office productivity software is extensively used to create electronic documents, spreadsheets and presentation files. These documents are widely shared within and across government agencies, commercial industries, educational institutions, and across countries, cultures and time zones. With millions of users of office productivity software, computer literacy is now equated by many to literacy in operating a word processor, spreadsheet or presentation application.
The office productivity software industry has had a tumultuous history in the last two decades, much due to harsh competitions. In order to ‘lock’ users to their software by making it difficult for end users to easily read, edit and save their documents in other office productivity software, corporations have developed electronic document formats that are closed, proprietary and lacked adequate documentation.
The closed nature of the documents have resulted in problems of electronic archeology: documents created by users 10 years ago or less cannot be opened with 100 percent fidelity in modern office software.
In response, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) started its work in 2002 to define an open standard for office documents (the ODF) to ensure interoperability between different office productivity software.
Governments and administrative bodies have been quick to recognize the merits of ODF and have started to integrate ODF as national policies for document use and exchange. This APDIP e-Note provide some examples from Australia to the US.
Other open standards discussed in this APDIP e-Note include the Microsoft-released Office Open XML and Adobe Systems’ Portable Document Format.
APDIP e-Notes are brief snapshots that present analyses of specific issues related to information and communication technologies (ICTs) for sustainable human development in the Asia-Pacific region. This online series introduces readers to the who, what, where, why and how of a wide range of current issues related to ICTs such as Internet governance, ICTs and poverty alleviation, e-governance, free and open source software, and many others.
Related Links
APDIP e-Note 18 - Standards for Electronic Documents, Ditesh Kumar, 2007 [PDF, 249kB]
APDIP e-Note 7 - Open Technologies: Catalyst for transformation, Jeffrey A. Kaplan, 2006 [PDF, 89kB]
Free/Open Source Software: Open Standards, Nah Soo Hoe, 2006 [PDF with cover, 823kB] [PDF without cover, 473kB] [Wikibook]
Roadmap for Open ICT Ecosystem [PDF, 464kB] [Wiki] [Official Website]
International Open Source Network
Government Interoperability Framework Project
All APDIP e-Notes
APDIP e-Resources
Open means having choice - an article by Jianggan Li
Last modified 2007-08-27 01:29 PM
