Expanded Format Support in Office 2007

Matthew Hardman — Thu, 22 May 2008 07:10:23 GMT

There is some great news coming out of Redmond today around some of the feature improvements being delivered via Office 2007 Service Pack 2, scheduled for the first half of 2009. Service Pack 2 will incorporate document support for

XML Paper Specification (XPS)
Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A
Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1

What does this mean?

Well it means that when uses create documents in Microsoft Office 2007, they can save it in to any of the formats natively (without having to install third-party updates).

Now of course some people will say what about the recently approved OpenXML standard? Well much of that standard is already supported in Office 2007 today, but we will see the full implementation of OpenXML in the next version of Office code named "Office 14"

Then in addition to all of this goodness, Microsoft is also committed to providing the ability to open, edit and save documents in the Uniform Office Format (UOF), which is the Chinese national document format.

There is always going to be a lot of sensationalism about Microsoft supporting ODF, especially when OpenXML has just been approved, but that is not the way to look at this announcement. Lets be clear, I don't see this as being all about ODF and OpenXML, in fact there are three other standards being supported here in addition to ODF. This is Microsoft, being a responsible company, listening to the customer, understanding their needs, and working to deliver a solution that delivers the greatest choice.

Microsoft Office Labs

Matthew Hardman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:17:25 GMT

Microsoft Office Labs

This is cool, if you get a chance check it out...

From the site:

Welcome to Microsoft Office Labs!

This site is a proving ground for ideas that come from regular employees and interns who work anywhere in Microsoft. Most of the code prototypes are developed by the Office Labs team in partnership with the teams that make the products. After all, they produce most of the ideas. Some of the things you find here will be web-based, others are downloads. Some will be a combination, something we call "software + services."

The prototypes you see here are like "Concept Cars". They aren't products or features of Microsoft Office. Don't expect them to work perfectly, or be available here forever. Just as when a concept car is shown at an auto-show, one or two or none of the ideas shown might make it into a future vehicle. Everybody knows its unpredictable, so don't go off thinking this is some kind of preview for future versions of Office, ok? Anyway, we thought it would be interesting to present some ideas we are exploring.

It's fun to try new stuff, but we also have a reason for putting these ideas out here in public. We want to find out which of these ideas are valuable, how people use them, and generally what you all think. To measure how effective the various ideas are we collect a variety of data about how you use these prototypes. If the thought of us gathering this data bothers you, please don't use these tools.

The prototypes really work, but as we said, they’re not products. We may enhance these prototypes based on your feedback as we test the ideas further, but these are free and there’s no official support. As with all such things, proceed at your own risk.

Every couple of months or so another prototype may show up. Sometimes more than one. Sometimes it’ll be longer. We hope you become a regular visitor and participant in the discussions. Let us know what you think!

One of the projects you can try is the Search Commands for Office 2007. This enables you to type in the command you are looking for and then click the one you want, very cool.

The Platform and the Hardman : Office

Expanded Format Support in Office 2007

Microsoft Office Labs