Office 2003 and ODF Translator addon

[localzuk]

I have rolled out the ODF translator available here but now have found it adds extra 'Save as ODF' and 'Open ODF' options to the File menu in the suite.

 

Is there a way to have the software open ODF files but not add ridiculous new menu items?

[Michael]

I have seen this before too. I think the answer to this is no, however for your reference, Office 2010 supports ODF out the box.

[CyberNerd]

I have seen this before too. I think the answer to this is no, however for your reference, Office 2010 supports ODF out the box.

 

"Supports" in the looses sense of the word. MS added the feature in Office 2007 SP2 after several governments mandated the use of ODF (so did Becta, not that anyone took any notice)

I think it also only uses the older 1.1 format as well, so no use for spreadsheets:

Update on ODF Spreadsheet Interoperability

 

 

We had the old Sun odf converter installed on office 2003 rather than the sourceforge link you posted. I don't recall it added any menu items, but not sure if it is still available.

[localzuk]

Well... the outcome of this is that I am now removing it from every machine.

 

1. It adds that annoying menu option which I don't want,

2. It randomly causes Normal.dot files to become corrupted, crashing Word,

3. It causes random VB errors in Word.

 

So, yeah, not a great tool!!

 

Worked fine testing it on my machine, but not over the network it seems!!

[Michael]

"Supports" in the looses sense of the word. MS added the feature in Office 2007 SP2 after several governments mandated the use of ODF (so did Becta, not that anyone took any notice)

I think it also only uses the older 1.1 format as well, so no use for spreadsheets:

Update on ODF Spreadsheet Interoperability

 

 

We had the old Sun odf converter installed on office 2003 rather than the sourceforge link you posted. I don't recall it added any menu items, but not sure if it is still available.

 

I suppose it's a step in the right direction, (without the need to install add-ons). It's rare users save in this format, but nice to have the option there for those that use Open Office or other alternatives.

[Arthur]

Does Oracle still sell their ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office? The last I heard of it was when they started charging for it several years ago...

 

http://i.imgur.com/CsyCN.png

[localzuk]

There's about as much chance of anyone buying that as there is of my jumping and landing on the moon!

[CyberNerd]

I suppose it's a step in the right direction, (without the need to install add-ons).

 

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

 

It's rare users save in this format, but nice to have the option there for those that use Open Office or other alternatives.

 

We've really been encouraging staff and students to use ODF since Becta recommended it in 2005. We've loads of students at home who use Open/LibreOffice and it's also our 'default' installed office application in school,(google apps is probably the most widely used though). ODF makes transfer of documents between home school systems so much simpler as we can just recommend to staff and students "install libreoffice" rather than telling them to upgrade to teh latest,greatest MSOffice.

[Michael]

There's about as much chance of anyone buying that as there is of my jumping and landing on the moon!

 

With a minimum order quantity of 100 as well. I have to agree, you'd have to be mad to buy that!

 

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

 

I'm not sure what you're expecting really - most of the users I support still use a version of MS Office. Even the LA publish documents in Word or Adobe Reader format. I don't think I've ever seen an LA published document in ODF format come to think of it...

[localzuk]

I'm not sure what you're expecting really - most of the users I support still use a version of MS Office. Even the LA publish documents in Word or Adobe Reader format. I don't think I've ever seen an LA published document in ODF format come to think of it...

 

Which means they're ignoring government advice to use open formats. Which is great...

[Michael]

Yes, you're probably right, but do LAs do everything the Government ask or recommend them to do? Obviously not and I am sure there are reason(s) behind it when publishing documents.

 

If a larger percentage of schools for example use Microsoft Office 2003, you'd have to install some form of ODF viewer on every machine. Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice support .DOC format but Office 2003 does not support ODF.

 

I'm sure over time this will be changed, as Office 2007 SP2 and Office 2010 support ODF - even if it's an older revision, it doesn't matter, it's still better than Microsoft ignoring it completely.