Fully compatible with Microsoft Office?

[Kent Borg]

Ioannis Vranos wrote:
> Actually it is the MS Office side that is problematic (secret formats).
>   

Microsoft Office isn't 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. They 
change stuff to get you to buy a new version. The new versions are not 
always 100% backwards compatible with the old. And then there is 
bug-for-bug compatibility: When Microsoft ships buggy software others 
are stuck with the dilemma of emulating the bug or being incompatible. I 
know I have looked at the raw e-mail for Outlook meeting invitations and 
seen absolute clear errors about timezones/DST. Time and dates are 
difficult for Microsoft.

Recently I gave up trying to use Open Office on a spreadsheet because I 
couldn't get it to stop reformatting my entries (I put ASCII in I wanted 
identical ASCII out*), I ended up using Gnumeric. A lot of scientific 
data has been lost over the years because somebody put it in a 
spreadsheet and Microsoft insisted on reformatting it in surprising 
ways; I am sure Open Office has gone to great efforts to be compatible 
with such "features". Be careful what you wish for.

Anyone who uses more convoluted features of MS Office will not only risk 
being incompatible with Open Office, but they will risk being 
incompatible with future versions of MS Office. That said, I am sure 
Microsoft is better at knowing their secret formats than are folks in 
the open source community.

-kb


* I was doing performance measurements and wanted to put some bash 
commands in cells, but it kept capitalizing and tampering with my 
spelling and things like that. I mostly got it to stop messing with my 
data, but it still insisted on "fixing" my quotes, I think it was. 
Gnumeric has its own quirks about focus and pasting, but at least I have 
gotten it to not tamper with my data--as far as I can tell.