“Microsoft’s Office 2007 for Windows saves documents in a format that’s incompatible the company’s Mac Office application,” Macworld reports.
Macworld reports, “By default, Office 2007 saves documents in what the company calls ‘Microsoft Office Open XML.’ The new format applies across Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications on PCs using Office 2007. The formats are specifically termed: docx, xlsx and pptx.”
Microsoft’s “Mac Business Unit hasn’t yet delivered similar software for existing Mac installations of Office. It has promised to ship them, but hasn’t yet committed to a specific date for this.,” Macworld reports.
Full article here.
APC reports, “A spokesperson for the MBU reminded APC of its promise at WWDC that ‘free downloadable converters would be available’ following the release of Office 2007 for Windows, but was unable to tell us when. ‘Unfortunately it is still to early for us to say when the converters will be available,’ she said.”
“Of course, Office 2007 applications can save their documents in ‘backward compatible’ formats, but that be a pain for co-workers and Mac users alike,” APC reports.
“Perhaps the only good news to come out of the announcement is the reluctance of businesses to upgrade. According to some sources, businesses will wait up to two years to make the switch,” APC reports. “Perhaps Mac users will have the converters they need by then.”
Full article here.
Powers corrupts.
Monkey boy can’t be happy his poop colored player is bombing.
Hopefully Europe will help force more open standards for file formats.
We all knew the battle was going to get dirty like this didn’t we?
M$ is running scared. Those devils are drowning in their own cesspool and will do anything to save themselves at this point.
Who cares. What I really want is iWork 07.
Those Mother F***ers!!
My Mac-based business depends on Office compatibility…
I HATE M$!!!!
oh no! you mean i won’t be able to open worthless word docs and ugly ppt documents anymore? damn, oh whatever will I do?
i want iWork 07 too, and for the time being I’ll use Open Office or Neo Office, sice they are free open source office suits
To Jake and others,
Hmmmm. I have to wonder, then this new MS word format is not compatiable with older MS word programs. You have to upgragde your existing MS work 2003, 98, whatever, to be able to read these new files?????
So that means that if you buy MS word 2007, no one can read your files???
Am I understanding this right???
Is that like Zune? MS is expecting the world to suddenly run out and buy MS word 2007 just so it can talk to each other, when they can do so now without changing? If you buy MS word 2007, and do not save in old format, no one else can open your files???
really weird.!!!
MS word 2007. . . . . Zuned.
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N.
(voice of Bugs Bunny)
“Of course you know, this means war!”
Norm e.
There will be a free plug in for older versions of pc office to read/write the new anti-mac format.
surprised?
no
Dutch,
Perhaps you don’t care, but there are millions that have to interface with the rest of the world that uses Office on Windows. Let’s not ignore the facts just because we want to operate in an Apple vacuum.
The only reason I am able to use my MacBook Pro in a Wall Street business (with Dells and Lenovos everywhere) is that I can be COMPLETELY compatible with MS Office. And even though I am running Parallels, doing all of my Office work there is not a way to be efficient.
Also, iWork will NEVER be totally compatible with MS Office. Let’s not try and move mountains when a tunnel will do.
Get real!
Often when file formats are modernized, they become incompatible with the old formats. This is because the new formats allow you to incorporate features that had not been envisioned when the old format was invented.
The only reason this surprises us is that IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE MICROSOFT HAS UPDATED ANYTHING that we just assume that all MS formats are compatible with each other.
WHAT REALLY TICKS ME OFF is when they DON’T include a way to save documents in the old format. At work I use Visio 2003 on XP. But Visio 2003 can’t save files in a format readable by my coworker with Visio 2002! Seriously! M$ wants to force everybody to upgrade, and by making the file formats incompatible, it just might work. What a bunch of crooks!
I have Office 2007, and there is an option in it to switch the default saving format to Office 2003 format.
And people look at me like I’m some kind of weirdo when I tell them I avoid M$ apps like the plague…
“Microsoft Office Open XML”.
So it needs special converter’s that Microsoft will write for everyone else when they get around to it, for everyone else to read their supposed ‘open’ format.
Not very ‘open’ is it?
Typical, this is open-source, Microsoft-style.
@norm e
“So that means that if you buy MS word 2007, no one can read your files???
Am I understanding this right???”
Yes, you are.
MS has done this for years and years and years.
Sure, you might be able to get by on some kind of converter, but basically this is the ENTIRE MODEL MS uses to drive Office upgrades.
Each new version of Office can open old files, but will save by default to the new, improved, and CLOSED format.
Soon people start emailing you files and you can’t open them. And then you start bugging your corporate tech support about it and they decide to upgrade everyone.
In fact, I think I read somewhere that part of this strategy involved giving free copies of the new Office to top-level executives. Those excecutives would start sending people incompatible docs, and NO WAY is anyone going to tell the execs to save in an old format. This forces everyone under them to upgrade.
It’s brilliant, really.
How can Apple break this cycle?
what is iwork 07
okay..it’s about time iTunes becomes a mac-only app…
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And another thing…
Does anyone else think that this is a ‘shot-across-the-bows’ to Apple for daring to even hint at the possibility of the fact that they might, someday release their Office-killer?
Microsoft will, eventually get around to writing the converter’s to Mac, but is this ‘delay’ really Microsoft flexing it’s muscles towards Apple?
MadMac,
MS has switched to an XML format for the underlying document format for a reason…. so it can be an open format and easily adopted by other companies. Apple or any company will be able to read/write the new .____x formats. You can relax.
So when are the Mac folks going to get it through there minds – M$$$$ is not our cup of tea anymore! Even in the world of business, there are better and more Mac friendly solutions out there!
With all of the other application chooses out there, these days why even have M$$$ even on your Mac? I don’t!
Lets see now there always Applework (albeit a little long in the tooth), iWorks new “Pages” which just keep getting better and better.
Now if one really needs to be able to read and write Word and it’s counter parts, from time to time, as I do, then there something out there called “NeoOffice’, based on “OpenOffice”, which take cares of any longing on my part for Word or other like minded M$$$ offerings! And the best part is it’s free and Mac friendly! can’t bet that…
So? More businesses and consumers will choose Open Office.
And? Apart from the nefarious reasons to upgrade to Vista / Office, this is another reason not toupgrade at all.
‘Unfortunately it is still to early for us to say when the converters will be available,’ she said.”
Unfortunately, APC’s grammar sucks. Can you find the error?
Come on people, MS doing this sort of thing is nothing new. How many times has MS released a new version of Office for windows but the older versions of word, for example, cannot read the new files? Actually I have always found it funny how people used to complain about mac office not being compatible with windows office when switching between windows versions of office was just as bad. Try opening newer versions of files in Office 97 and you will see what I mean. This is typical MS but only gets headlines so media outlets can try and paint the mac in a bad light by saying this mac isn’t compatible.
Making iTunes Mac-only would be a very bad idea. Based on installed OS percentages, I’ll bet more tunes are downloaded to peecees than Macs; at the least a very high percentage are. It would be too much business to lose for Apple.
I don’t see what all the excitement is about here. Mac Office is and has been outdated for a while now. Undoubtably, the soon-to-be released upgrade (Universal Binary) will support this new file format. So, don’t get your panties all up in a wad; this is just business as usual. Things changes, things improve, Microsoft builds upgrade incentives into their products. Next story.
For Carl Carlson… she is using to instead of too. I wish people would learn the difference between to, too, and two.
I work with Pages and it is truly one great application. Word processing and more became enjoyable again for me.
And I just looked at NeoOffice – wow it is looking good, very good. The screenshots make it look every bit a contender..
http://neowiki.sixthcrusade.com/index.php/NeoOffice_Screenshots
I think I might just be about to lose Excel and Powerpoint, the last two MS apps on my Mac. Woohooo!
Just last week I stopped using office for Mac, and moved to iWork 06. I now have zero apps from M$. Feels good
Microsoft is incompatible with humanity.
coolfactor,
Yeah, and now that Mac users have been conditioned to be the last to be considered (mostly by Adobe ironically), how could we possibly expect Office 2007 to be compatible with Office 2007 for Mac without waiting for a year or two. Oh well, what’s the difference, its just a year or two.
Personally I’m switching over to Mariner Software’s suite of office products for Mac. I think that’s the best thing to happen to word processing on the Mac since WriteNow (OS7+).
“…formats, but that be a pain for co-workers and Mac users alike,” APC reports.”
Best be proofin’ that shit mofo.
coolfactor –
Not so. While the overall docx format uses xml to organize the information, from my reading about the file format most of the actual critical info within the xml tags is encrypted to make it impossible for other companies to accurately read and display the data stored in the file. So while you may be able to get the text data out, everything else about the file’s organization is lost.
See Groklaw’s “THE MASSACHUSETTS ODF-MS XML TIMELINE/RESOURCE PAGE” for more information.
‘behind’ as in MS is behind the curve as always.
Seeing as how the Fortune 500 company I work for is still stuck on Office 2000, I don’t see this as being a problem for quite some time.
How contradictory- Microsoft Office Open XML???!
Starting with the word Microsoft, meaning it is already going to be proprietary, Office meaning it will be terrible, and then, how is it open exactly??
Come on guys. Get a grip.
Microsoft has been consistently criticised for using a closed source file format for Office. *Finally* they move to an open XML-based format, that anyone can parse. This is to celebrated. Clearly older products can’t read a new format – hardly a surprise. But the new Office can still save in the old (proprietary) formats that Mac::office and other applications can read, and of course future producys will be able to easily use the new *open* XML format.
I really wonder about the technical understanding of the readers of MDN sometimes…
scumbags
total scumbags
The problem is not them moving to a new format, but not doing it in a way that includes everyone equally. Why do some folks have to wait perhaps months just to use the new format? Release plugins simultaneous with this crap.
Unfortunately this is nothing new from M$ (or any other company for that matter). MS just seems to be the primary offender (it is part of their business model.)
However, as has been said, many of us depend on MS Office. I for one have tried NeoOffice (NO) and OpenOffice (OOO) and neither one of them are suitable. NeoOffice being based upon Java is just painfully slow and clunky and OpenOffice is too Windows 95’ish for my tastes. I have to be able to 100% interact with .doc’s I receive from associates and clients. There is no other option. While I fully understand that NO and OOO are free, I don’t mind paying for quality software, provided it works and stays current. M$ fails at the former and NO and OOO fail at the latter.
MS docx format is supposed to be open XML based, well the jury is still out on that one. I for one, as will many others (and not just Mac users), will be telling .docx (Office 2007) users to reformat there documents as “no one here in the office can open them.”
zac
The world needs to use ODF – the open source file format that is completely open and approved as a standard. This would eliminate the need for proprietary file formats and would allow any application to use them including text editors and other word processors on any platform. Certain implementations may or may not have support for all the stuff in there, but they can just ignore it and implement whatever subset they know.
For the short term, just use Parallels with an XP partition. For the long run, Microsoft is screwing itself. When the Mac market share gets well into the double digits, Open Source word processors — really Open Source — will be able to take a nice chunk of the market.
If Apple cooperates with the Open Source community — and they already do — Apple would be compatible with the data formats used by many companies governments and institutions world wide which detest Microsoft lock in. Microsoft may just be locking itself out.
As a followup:
Most content we have produced for email over the last several years has been going out in PDF format. Have yet to get anything kicked back as unreadable.
MacOS X since Jaguar has had PDF file translation built in. It is truly convenient and many Windows colleagues and clients who have seen it in action (how truly easy it is to do) are amazed.
zac
“xlsx and pptx”
I will be naming formats from now on.
I want to see countermoves to M$. If other formats, open source, for instance, are given equal billijng by other companies, they’ll force M$’s hand to comply, too. It all depends on whether many people are going to upgrade Office. Frankly, I don’t see why they would. It does too much already.
I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to pull a stunt like this just so they can blame Apple for the problem. We have already established that the average home computer user has the IQ of a stuffed pillow, so this strategy could work fairly well.
For fucks sake guys, do any of you actually know what an XML file is ????????
Your answer is simple, run Office 2007 under Parallels or Boot Camp.
Or if you can live without Office, stop using it.
But whatever way, stop Whining, You buy into being behind in product releases when you get a Mac. Why should this be a suprise to you?
I’m with Reality Check on this one…
From the Macworld article: “Novell has promised it will release code that supports the new Office 2007 formats to the open source developers of its alternative (and free) productivity suite, OpenOffice.org. This support is scheduled to debut “by the end of January”. Novell will also release translation software to help documents created in either suite to be opened in the other.”
How can they do this? Because it *is* open.
Basically, the Open XML format is all about saving documents in a web-friendly format as opposed to a proprietary one. It’s called *progress*. The MBU will have this fixed soon. Next…
@Macaday
“I think I might just be about to lose Excel and Powerpoint, the last two MS apps on my Mac. Woohooo!”
Keynote is already far superior to, and compatible with Powerpoint, so you can lose it NOW!
Hang on a sec….
I remember reading something about this a few months back and someone mentioned that these were XML files that were basically zipped.
Could someone with access to an Office 2007 file try unzipping it and see what happens? If this puts it into a format that Office for Mac can read, then I’m sure a quick hack could be written by someone to automagically convert these to a useable format.
Of course, if it really is this easy, it makes no sense that MBU wouldn’t alreay have converters in place unless the WANTED to make us wait….
AGAIN: Basically, the Open XML format is all about saving documents in a web-friendly format as opposed to a proprietary one.
XML IS A WEB STANDARD: Read This Before Crying
Ever notice how Apple always gets ripped on because of FairPlay DRM while the Janus DRM on Windoze Media rarely gets mentioned? Or how Microsoft can deliver client apps that are always crippled on other platforms and never get ripped on it in the MSM? Or how a company that claims to support industry standards goes out of it’s way to alter it so that it mucks up other OSes and applications? Remember the ‘security updates’ that did little for security, but broke competitor’s apps?
This is just more of the S.O.S. from Microsoft. Something tells me that iWork ’07 will be able to translate this format. Apple bought a small Vancouver company about a year ago that specialized in software that is able to translate formats on the fly and counted Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Adobe and others as clients. I would bet that most of that will be included in OS 10.5.
Overreacting 101: Just because XML is standard, doesn’t mean all files in XML can be read in a standard way. The fact is that files saved in the Office 2007 cannot be read by Office 2004, and there’s currently no tool for converting. You can obsfucate files in XML just as easily as you can in binary.
HOWEVER: Microsoft have publicly announced that they will provide conversion tools for Mac Office at some point. Its not clear when however.
pog: Total bollocks. XML is ASCII with tags that define the meaning of each field. What’s more, an XSD document umabiguously defines the meaning of each field.
And just in case you still don’t understand, Microsoft have kindly published the full fucking details of the file format here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=15805380-f2c0-4b80-9ad1-2cb0c300aef9&displaylang=en
How is that obsfucated?
When has any software manufacturer guaranteed that old software can read newer formats? Does iPhoto 1.0 open iPhoto 6.0 files? Or iTunes 1.0 open iTunes 6.7? I doubt it…
Hey, it’s not just the macs…it’s everybody out there with anything other than Office ’07.
We ain’t buying 300 new copies of Office…
This is just another MS clusterf*ck forced upgrade. They did this with Office 2000, too.
MDN MW ‘shall’: I shall be telling people to avoide this shite like the plague.
Open XML = oxymoron
Ballmer = moron
Well, Office XML is not quite the standards-based, web-friendly format its defenders here claim:
“OpenDocument is similar to XHTML, while MS XML is not.”
“OpenDocument uses a mixed content model, whereas the Office Open XML format does not. “Non-mixed documents usually represent structured data; mixed documents are usually used to represent narrative. MS XML uses the non-mixed model to represent narrative (word processing). This sort of mismatch leads to awkward markup… The mixed-content model makes more sense, and is closer to what a developer will be familiar to.”
Source:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenDocument_and_Microsoft_Office_Open_XML_formats#Cross-platform_interoperability>
Randolph,
First, thanks for the feedback. But I am still a little confused. If Microsoft is going to provide a “package” to use on older versions of word to make them able to read this new format, then will these older word programs real ALL the newer versions of word or just this new format???
I totally understand that new apps are backward compatiable but old apps are not forward capable. Simple. But I guess the key is that, Is this MS change of format against Apple or just a general improvement that will be flowed down to all????? The first is a sort of war, the second is just MS trying to improve. With Microsoft, I guess we will have to wait and see.
N.
ref. “Yes, you are.
MS has done this for years and years and years.
Sure, you might be able to get by on some kind of converter, but basically this is the ENTIRE MODEL MS uses to drive Office upgrades.
Each new version of Office can open old files, but will save by default to the new, improved, and CLOSED format.
Soon people start emailing you files and you can’t open them. And then you start bugging your corporate tech support about it and they decide to upgrade everyone………..
It’s brilliant, really.”
It’s not bollocks, Reality Check. You’re just buying into MS’s propaganda in thinking that their Office XML format is free and open.
Blog post from Microsoft Mac Business Unit. They are saying there will be “public beta” converters by Spring of ’07, with the final versions to come 6-8 weeks after the release of the new version of Office (in other words, Fall of ’07).
http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/archive/2006/12/06/converters-coming-free-and-fairly-fast.aspx
Apple REALLY needs to support ODF in Pages and Keynote.
Ok, if my only interest is being able to be MS free, but need to send/receive from Windows users (word processing only); apart from Text Edit (or, IS this sufficient for my needs?), what are the several FREE alternatives out there that any of you would recommend, please?
If I remember right MS Office 2007 for Mac comes available something like 6 months after the Windows release. How convenient.
Microsoft has been playing dirty ever since day one. And they sure ain’t gonna stop now, maybe they’ll stop when they have lost 30-40% of their market share to the competition. Who knows.
But if they lose, say 40%, of their market share, it might be a mud slide instead of an avalanche. It’s all about innovation in that point and Microsoft has skills in innovation as much as I have in astronomy.
Strong CEO can save the company from an avalanche, but a total idiot that acts like mmm… …hmm… …Ballmer, can do nothing and the landscape changes a lot and it happens fast.
Compatibility IS the reason MS wants to use Office Open XML format
Please note first three points made. They do have some merit.
^^^ Click or scroll down to : Advantages of Office Open XML formats over OpenDocument
And yes there are advantages to ODF as well, but the first three points made in the above at least give you some reason as to why MS needs to define an “open” standard of it’s own.
For those confused by that link:
1 Microsoft has stated that a design goal for its formats was 100% compatibility with the existing base of documents and formatting used by its customers. In particular, Jones states that OpenDocument is not able to capture all the information potentially held by a binary Office file, whereas OpenXML can do that.[2]
2 Microsoft also states, relatedly to the previous point, that the OpenDocument format lacks support for the complete set of functionality in Microsoft Office applications (such as VBA and OLE support, support for highlighting[3], international numbering[4], tables in presentations[5], and other features), so any converter that saved information from an Office file (either binary or OpenXML) into an OpenDocument format would potentially be lossy.
3 Microsoft Excel has a well-known formula language that has been defined in its entirety in the new XML formats, whereas the OpenDocument TC is still working on such a specification. MS Office program manager Brian Jones notes on his Open XML blog that the Open XML draft specification has about 200 pages on the subject, whereas the OpenDocument specification has a few lines.[6]Currently ODF cannot be considered interoperable for spreadsheet documents as it allows for vendor specific implementations of the formulas in spreadsheets.
Support ODF and tell Microsoft where they can stick their proprietary formats!
MS XML is NOT an open web standard. Wake up MS lemmings…
MS XML is NOT an open web standard. Wake up MS lemmings…
Right on. It should just be called MSML.
Dear Apple,
It’s time to unleash Numbers.
Dear Microsoft,
What does Office 2007 offer besides new upgrade-coercing file formats?
Dear World,
SCREW OFFICE 2007! YOU DON’T HAVE TO UPGRADE. FSCK MS!
Unless of course all earlier Offices conveniently break under Vista… Then fsck MS anyway. It’s time to dump MS for good.
Unfortunately Microsoft has no choice. What is so great about Office 2007 that people want to purchase it? Therefore they have to figure out a way to use their monopoly to ‘force’ the upgrades. Backwards incompatability is the way to go. Sure you can go to office 2003 but as anyone tried it. Why do I suspect that it may not be 100% ‘perfect’.
If Office 2007 flops, the that will really hurt MS.
Don’t buy it.
Also not compatible with all PC versions of Office before the ’07 version. I don’t think this new Office is going to be too popular.
Is Microsoft brain-dead? They alienate previous PlaysForSure users with a new (repackaged) media player that is not compatible. Then they alienate existing Windows users with Vista, which is buggy, costs a bundle to upgrade, and does not run well on most existing systems. Then they make a new version of Office where the default saving format is not compatible with all previous versions (Mac or otherwise).
Soon, even Microsoft will not have any customers left. Someone new needs to take charge and clean house.
Time for a “macwork” program.
Needs to include a full-fleged word processor, a Spreadsheet, and a scaled down File maker relational database along with keynote. Have the features that are used by 90% of the Office user (very few when compared to all the features in office), and chuck the rest, thereby reducing bloat.
Let developers sell that as plugins for those that really need it specific features.
Sell it for $150 and it would be a fair price if it did all that.
Oh and just like I Life, it should be included with all new units sold.
“Who cares. What I really want is iWork 07”
I’m with you, as long as there is a decent spreadsheet app, at least as good as AppleWorks.
Ahhh, that’s the Microsoft that I know.
It’s good to have the evil corporation back in true form. Cause chances are…it wont work with XP either.
It’s nice that they victimize their own customers also.
To coolfactor, reality Check, and the others who see this as a nonissue:
There are two factors to consider.
1. MS XML spec (which is well over 1000 pages of text) contains binary wrappers for formats/objects that are MS proprietary – this makes it less than open. Also the licensing of MS formats is unclear. It’s definitely not an ‘open’ format, as in open source, or even ODF. It has had little scrutiny outside of MS and has taken *no* input. It’s not for the users, it’s to maintain MS hegemony with an *appearance* of openess.
2. The real “vendor lock-in” on the new MS Office comes from the new DRM feature that businesses will use to ‘protect’ internal documents. Not only is there no converter to old format for this feature, but they also have to purchase an extra MS server to handle the access rights for users.
It’s really insidious posturing (as usual) from Microsoft.