Yesterday, Microsoft announced that its new Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 will support universal formats other than its own. Office will add support for ODF (Open Document Format) used by OpenOffice, StarOffice and other tools. It will also have support for PDF 1.5 and PDF/A. The support includes opening and editing and creating documents in these formats without any additional converting tools or third-party plug-ins.

Microsoft is willing to participate in the development of these two universal standards. It will also collaborate with other parties in the development of its own Open XML and XPS standards. Open XML and XPS support is not yet supported in this Office version. Microsoft announced that they will be supported in Office 14 even though they are ISO (International Standards Organization) approved. Office 14 is expected to be released by 2010.

The step from Microsoft is in response to governments and other global organizations. They stated that they need support to standard document formats in their office tools. “In supporting these standards, we’re providing a platform for greater innovation and growth in the ecosystem,” said Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general manager of standards and interoperability.

Microsoft has included support for PDF after a long battle with Adobe Systems. But now since PDF is in the hands of universal standards body, Adobe can’t complain about it.  Now, new users of Microsoft Office 2007 will no longer need to get their own tools to convert to/from PDF, It’s all going to be in one pack.

Source: InformationWeek.com