ODF TC approves ODF 1.2 as Committee Specification

The OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC has officially and unanimously approved ODF 1.2 as a Committee Specification. The new version of the standard has taken four years to complete and has been adopted by many applications already. Next stage is the official vote within OASIS to adopt this specification as an OASIS standard. OASIS is the designated maintenance body for ISO/IEC JTC1 SC34 IS26300.

ODF describes an XML-based application-independent and platform-independent digital document file format, as well as the characteristics of software applications which read, write and process such documents. The ODF standard is applicable to document authoring, editing, viewing, exchange and archiving, including text documents, spreadsheets, presentation graphics, drawings, charts and similar documents commonly used by personal productivity software applications. A significant number of governments worldwide have chosen ODF as the standard for exchanging documents within government and with external contacts such citizens and companies.

OpenDoc Society congratulates the members of the ODF TC on their work. "This is an important step for the entire ecosystem," states Michiel Leenaars, board member of OpenDoc Society, "There is significant demand for this new version of the standard, as it enables new exiting and unique features such as RDF metadata, advanced digital signatures and enhances key areas of ODF such as formula's. That means the next stage of interoperability for office applications is finally there". With already very strong vendor support for the new version of the standard and the formal adoption as an OASIS standard likely to occur in a matter of several weeks (i.e. a 30 day ballot period), OpenDoc Society encourages customers to evaluate and start planning the adoption of ODF 1.2.

More info:

The multi-part specification "Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) Version 1.2" (Committee Specification Draft 07 / Public Review Draft 03) can be found here:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/csprd03/





