[Bradford] The UK Government Open Standards Survey

[richard]

On Sun, 2011-04-24 at 19:35 +0100, Alan D Barnard wrote:
> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UKGovOpenStandards
> 


> 


> 
> 7) Word (.doc)
> 
> Not a 'standard' by any definition. 

yes


> It is the file extension for a 
> series of Microsoft word-processors. The actual format is not publicly 
> documented by Microsoft and there is good reason to believe that some 
> versions are not fully documented at all. The only formal definition of 
> the format is that it is that produced by a particular version of 
> Microsoft Word. Files are not even uniformly interchangeable between 
> different versions of the software.


http://www.scribd.com/doc/2252446/Word-972007-Binary-File-Format-Doc-Specification





> This format is no longer the default for either the current version of 
> Word or for the previous one.
> 
> R.I.P. except for the fact that it has been extensively 
> reverse-engineered and has served to facilitate document transfer 
> between different word-processors including between old and new versions 
> of Microsoft Word.
> 
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