ODF (Open Document Format)

That is not supported in this version.

There is no plugin available. What is planned for the future is not known outside Apple.

For individual ODF documents the test thing is to open them in OpenOffice or NeoOffice, and then save them in Word format for Pages to import them.

One thing to note, I saved a document (Export) as RTF and then tried to open it in NeoOffice and it won't open at all. Zilch.

Export as Word .doc and it opens, but the formatting is all gone.

Seems like no one took the "other" Office formats into account here.

Message was edited by: rom.ph

Message was edited by: Host

I also was surprised they do not support it, but there is a certain logic to it. ISO standard does not mean that everyone has to use it. It means that everyone who uses is follows the same standard. I guess Apple judged that not enough people were using it yet for them to spend money in implementing compatibility.

There are states in USA and other government bodies, though, that have gone and standardized on the format.

There was an enlightening message thread about the RTF and RTFd format as to who owns it and what it is which surprised me, and I thought, if you save as RTF, that should be readable, so why won't NeoOffice open a file created by Pages 3?

I guess have to do it for myself and 'test' Pages 2 vs 3 to see what happens, and also OpenOffice.org, to see.

Truthfully, I have two files I could open in Numbers (a table of all software program versions and serial numbers), but I don't use Keynote, so Pages for me is the whole $79, and buying Pages 2 last week and 3 this week makes this a $160 word processor 😟

Were there by any chance pictures in the rtf you saved? If so, it becomes an rtfd, and no one (afaik) can read it except Apple's applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RichText_FormatDirectory

http://pagesfaq.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-cannot-pages-show-pictures-in-rtf.html

that was it. I'll try again.

I tried opening in Neo and OOo.

Word format worked.

pages files look more like packages, including RTFd.

Not supporting ODF kills iWork for me. I do not support any lock-in applications including MS Office.

Art

Given how many programs read and write .doc formats, MS Office format isn't really a lock-in.

"Given how many programs read and write .doc formats, MS Office format isn't really a lock-in. "

Please!

Any non-microsoft implementations of the .doc format are accomplished either through licensing the spec from Microsoft or by reverse-engineering. So the "best" (least buggy) implementations are either made by Microsoft or licensed by them. It's also not entirely clear to me that reverse-engineering the standard is 100% legal.

There is no readily apparent logic behind Apple's decision not to implement ODF. The specifications are open and the standard is certified. Microsoft's so-called "Open" office XML is still not certified and is owned wholesale by one company. So any OOXML-compatible software can be broken by changes made unilaterally by Microsoft at any time.

Lastly, aren't there at least two open source projects on Sourceforge that convert OOXML to ODF and back again? It seems that any software developer worth its salt should be able to support ODF quickly and easily; assuming, of course, that they wanted to.

I agree with you. There really is no excuse for Apple not to support ODF other than they are just as proprietary in nature as Microsoft is. I'm pretty sure all the formats in iWork are XML based therefore they can be exported to ODF rather easily. In the long run, I believe iWork should use the ODF format natively anyway. Lets eliminate this need for Microsoft once and for all. Most corporations aren't considering Apple anyway. Don't let Microsoft Office hold us back. Apple should embrace ODF completely and design iWork around it as well as contribute back as much as possible.