ODF Converter for Word 2007

I listened to a Port 25  webcast yesterday and they mentioned the ODF Converter project on Sourceforge.  The project is Microsoft sponsored and community driven.  I pulled down the converter but since I'm going to rebuild my WDS environment for RC1 and haven't had lab time today, I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

https://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

This proves an interesting point, that once documents are based on XML they can be transformed in to other formats programmatically.  So whether you want the content to be delivered in ODF or a custom wiki project it's mostly just a matter of transform.  As issues are found or improvements are needed, the community can manage changes as needed.

I just spotted another reference on OpenXMLDeveloper.  If you are interested in building out your own converters for custom tools this would be an excellent place to start reading.

This is important to desktop deployment because as we standardize desktop images, it's good to have a plan that includes backwards compatibility (docx was designed for compatibility with previous doc versions) and support for other formats, especially in education where so many different formats are used simultaneously.