MS expands document interoperability

BANGALORE: Expanding on its "customer-focused commitment to interoperability", Microsoft Corp on Friday announced the creation of the Open XML Translator project.

The project, developed with partners, will create tools to build a technical bridge between the Office Open XML Formats and the OpenDocument Format (ODF), Microsoft said in a release.

"This work is in response to the government requests for interoperability with ODF as they work with some constituent groups who make use of that format. In addition to making these translation tools available as free, downloadable add-ins will support several older versions of Microsoft," it said.

The translation tools will be broadly available to the industry for use with other individual or commercial projects to accelerate document interoperability and expand customer choice between Open XML and other technologies, the company said.