Tim Almond

I recently had a conversation with Andy Oram (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/36) regarding how users can know what software another user can use. Andy’s post on it is here.

The issue is particularly around the question of .doc files created with OpenOffice.org (OOo) Writer. Many OpenOffice.org Writer users are creating .doc files to send to other people, which may be being read by other OpenOffice.org Writer users. Wouldn’t it be better for the users to be sending each other .odt files, for the sake of document accuracy, and increasing the marketshare of the format?

Requirements

Whatever solution is thought up,  there are 3 requirements:-

• The document should remain readable in Ooo Writer.
• The document should remain readable in Word.
• The document should be able to automatically notify one of the parties that the other is also using OOo Writer.

Solution 1

So, how do we deal with this issue? The ideal solution might be something like an integration of mail clients with a master email list of OOo Writer users, and mail clients like Thunderbird could query this and warn senders that the user is running OOo Writer.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is practical. Many people would not want to submit their email address to a list,  and people change their email addresses. Also, there are many email clients.

Solution 2 (proposed)

A better alternative might be to do something within OOo Writer, and have it identify when opening a document that the document was created or edited within another copy of OOo Writer.

The .doc format already has document properties, and this includes the facility for custom properties (in Word 2000 at least). A custom property of "Created With" with a value of "OOo Writer" could be created. To someone using Word, this would be there as a comment. But either a plugin or a change to the core Writer code could have a switch to flag this up, telling the user that the document was created elsewhere. This would allow the user to notify the sender that they are both OOo Writer users.

—–

Tags: Ideas //