Microsoft criticized for Open XML petition

TalkBack 12 of 15:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Why Criticize?

Because MOOXML is not a standard. It is an XML dump of Office 2007 masquerading as a standard to gain government adoption.

Here's a quote from the MOOXML spec:

2.15.3.26 footnoteLayoutLikeWW8 (Emulate Word 6.x/95/97 Footnote Placement)

This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (Microsoft Word 6.x/95/97) when determining the placement of the contents of footnotes relative to the page on which the footnote reference occurs. This emulation typically involves some and/or all of the footnote being inappropriately placed on the page following the footnote reference.

[Guidance: To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard. If applications wish to match this behavior, they must utilize and duplicate the output of those applications. It is recommended that applications not intentionally replicate this behavior as it was deprecated due to issues with its output, and is maintained only for compatibility with existing documents from that application. end guidance]

Typically, applications shall not perform this compatibility. This element, when present with a val attribute value of true (or equivalent), specifies that applications shall attempt to mimic that existing word processing application in this regard.

[Example: Consider a WordprocessingML document with a series of footnotes.

If this compatibility setting is turned on:

Then applications should mimic the behavior of Microsoft Word 6.x/95/97 when determining the placement of those footnotes on the displayed page, as needed. end example]

Okay... so how exactly did Word 6.x/95/97 lay out footnotes? The spec just says that it "involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard". That means that the only way you could possibly get this to work is to know how Word 6.x/95/97 laid out it's footnotes. Hmmm, who in the world knows that?

Microsoft. Period.

This isn't the only example; MOOXML is loaded with such sections, each one making it harder for anyone else to implement the "standard".

Posted by: DarkPhoenixFF4   Posted on: 04/06/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Virtualization: Architectural Considerations And Other Evaluation Criteria VMware Of the many approaches to x86 systems virtualization available in the ... Download Now
• Five Steps to Determine When to Virtualize YourServers VMware Server virtualization isn't just for big companies. Entry-level ... Download Now
• Three Steps You Need to Know to Stop Data Loss Varonis Sensitive data exposed to misuse or loss... it is the stuff of nightmares ... Download Now