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Office 2007 Compatibility Pack for Office:Mac Coming "(Fairly) Fast"


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  • 5 months later...
Now, pardon my ignorance here, but what sort of improvements are we talking here over the old format? It seems like MS is just attempting to introduce yet another crazy standard, when the old one seems to work perfectly well.

 

I can easily see an unofficial converter being made rather quickly...a simple AppleScript of sorts to strip out the essential text and formatting and dump it into a nice .doc. Of course, it really underscores the fact that MS is pretty much leaving Mac users in the cold again... =/

- Matthew

 

Just joined the forum list. Sorry for the late comment.

 

As I recall, the new MS Word format is based on XML (an open format...) BUT it still supports binary inclusions, including WMFs, etc., whicn enable them to insert proprietary enhancements to make their products superior to others since only they can handle these enhancements. Think DRM, vertical integration, feeping creaturism, etc.

 

Oh, and the fact that they support WMFs (and support the executable code within them (that's part of WMFs)), is a huge security hole. Anyone wanting to avoid such problems (e.g., virus filters) will want to avoid passing these binary attachments, making end users choose between additional MS functionality and security.

 

People probably already know about socially-engineered malware email that encourage users to turn off MS Office Macro restrictions, right? Same issue here.

 

Open format? Well...sort of.

 

Sigh.

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