Comments

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 15:56:53

  The "viewer" won't be that hot; it translates to HTML because that's the only thing that Firefox will display. It basically works the same way the ODF one works.
  
  It's ok for reading the text / etc. but it won't be high fidelity by any means.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-12-04 15:59:03

  If people want to view ODF, they go to OpenOffice.org. You are totally missing the point. Again.

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 16:00:35

  Oh, good grief Roy, you asked on the quality, and you're berating me for pointing out it won't be much good?
  
  And yeah, I'm sure plenty of people download ~100Mb+ office suites just to view files. Sure.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-12-04 16:02:58

  With OOo you can edit, not just view. Microsoft gives an illusion or very poor, read-only 'inter-operability'.

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 16:07:48

  This article is about OOXML, not ODF. OOo is indeed great software, but off-topic for this I feel. Chill out, Roy.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-12-04 16:10:01

  Are you here as a moderator?

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 16:11:44

  No, just trying to work out why you're trying to divert the discussion again.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-12-04 16:12:48

  It's not being diverted.

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 16:15:21

  Er, what? You starting talking about what software people should get to view ODF and accused me of missing the point.
  
  I rather think it's you who missed the point, given this article is about OOXML.
  
  It's fascinating how you quickly attack people even when they're effectively agreeing with your articles....

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-12-04 16:22:23

  Why is it that whenever I criticise some Novell/Microsoft technology you treat that as a personal attack against you?

• Jo Shields

  2008-12-04 16:24:40

  Erm, no, wait. he agreed with you, and you attacked him for it
  
  Really, I know you hate to "dwell on the past" when writing things, but try re-reading the comments.

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 16:25:30

  @Roy: take 10 minutes to chill out and actually read what I wrote. I was agreeing with your criticism (well, one of them, anyway).

• Roy Schestowitz

  2008-12-04 16:33:29

  I read that in light of our previous (ongoing) discussion.

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 16:35:09

  Well, that's not the thread I was responding to.

• landofblind

  2008-12-04 21:45:39

  Dismissing everyone that disagrees with you as apologists, boosters, revisionists and enthusiasts!!!???? will surely give you that credibility that you so desperately need.
  
  So, Microsoft releases something that doesn't work right. So what else is news. They have been doing that forever. Are you now worried about Microsoft's future and well being?
  
  Note: comment has been flagged for arriving from an incarnation of a known (eet), pseudonymous, forever-nymshifting, abusive Internet troll that posts from open proxies and relays around the world.

• twitter

  2008-12-04 21:49:56

  Ha ha, AlexH. I had a hard time believing you were being constructive too.
  
  Thanks for the tip about how suck the OOXML translator is, but try not to imply there's a problem with ODF viewers. If nothing else is done, it should be possible to view ODF perfectly with free software by printing it to pdf first (yes, my favorite browser embeds it's pdf viewer in tabs without a hitch). Because there are several free software programs that display ODF in an form that can be edited, there's no need to resort to klunky html "translators"

• AlexH

  2008-12-04 21:54:33

  @Twitter: thanks for the concern, but I was comparing the two Firefox plugins. I wasn't commenting on general ODF apps.