Office 2013 Extends Support for Open Document Formats

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

Seamlessly sharing, editing, and archiving documents are critical to business productivity. That’s one reason why the new Microsoft Office has added support for standardized document formats Strict Open XML and Open Document Format (ODF) 1.2. Announced recently, these open document formats provide users with more choices for office document interoperability.

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) published ODF 1.2 in January. As a member of the OASIS technical committee working on ODF, Microsoft provided technical expertise in key areas of improvement in ODF 1.2. The most significant ODF 1.2 improvement is the specification of Open Formula to standardize formulas for spreadsheets.

In addition to providing updated support for the Open XML and ODF standards, the new Office adds exciting new features around PDF files as well. With this release, Microsoft introduces the option, which we call PDF Reflow, to open PDF files as editable office documents.

For more on how these open document formats can improve productivity, please see the Office Next blog.