Gizmodo Australia » xml

Microsoft Word Ban Postponed, Stays On Shelves For Now

Danny Allen — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:15:00 +0000

As pretty much everyone who cares expected, the US Court of Appeals has granted Microsoft’s request to keep selling Word while it appeals i4i’s XML patent lawsuit. In mid-August, a federal jury had ordered Redmond to stop selling Word within 60 days. The alternative: cough up more than $US290 million in damages.

Yeah, I don’t see that happening. More likely is that they’ll figure out a way to remove the offending code before explaining its side of the story on September 23. And that’s the word. [Seattle Pi Microsoft Blog]

Update: Rumour Confirmed! Microsoft Office 2004 Getting Native XML Support

Nick Broughall — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:26:47 +0000

After Reader Jason’s tip last week that Microsoft would be updating Office 2004 for Mac to give it native XML Support, Microsoft have just dropped me an email confirming the whole thing. Their response:

In about 4-6 weeks, Microsoft will release a final file format converter which will allow Office 2004 for Mac users to read & write Office Open XML files. For example a customer would open a Word document sent from an Office 2008 for Mac user, and Word would do the conversion in the background. There are no extra steps. All existing features that will be in Office 2008 for Mac will be converted with no loss. New features in Office 2008 not available in Office 2004 will undergo some type of mapping into the old format. These features include equations, themes (font, colour and effects), OfficeArt, charts and diagrams.

The Mac BU will offer the only free, suite-wide converter tool available for users to access Word, Excel and PowerPoint Office Open XML files. In addition, our converter will offer both individual and batch file conversion.

The final Office 2004 converter will be a fully integrated solution that allows customers to both read and write Office Open XML files directly from within Office applications. Mac BU will also provide a converter for Office v.X, which will be a standalone drag & drop converter.

Mac BU are offering the converter so Office 2008 for Mac customers are able to share their documents with older Office customers & that Office 2004 for Mac & v.X users are able to read the new file formats.

Mac BU has always been open about this final converter when we released the Beta File Format Converters mid year we mentioned that final converters would be available post Office 2008 for Mac launch.

[Thanks Jason!]

Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 Released; Maybe eBooks Aren’t Dead After All

Seamus Byrne — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:00:05 +0000

Adobe rolled out its Digital Editions 1.0 reading software today, and it’s now available for a free download. In beta for the past six months, the software is able to handle PDF, flash and XML files, and also supports the new IDP Open Publication Standard (OPS) used for eBooks. So that means it’s already going to work with the 150,000 eBook files that are currently rotting on shelves and hard drives the world over. It’s able to do some new tricks, too.
It lets you annotate content with bookmarks, highlight stuff, and make little text notes just like you’re scribbling on a real book. Plus, it can wrap and reflow its text to fit the screen. We downloaded it and tested it out, and it feels positively snappy, letting you zoom in and out, wrapping its text and doing everything extremely well. It also has good facilities for managing the eBooks you have in your library. Go ahead, try it. There are some free eBooks you can download from Adobe to get a feel for the software.

Publishers will like its DRM (digital rights management) on board, keeping their valuable titles from being spread all over the InterWebs without benefit of payment. Of course, someone will quickly crack that code, but until then, this looks like a suitable application for managing and reading all sorts of digital newspapers, books and magazines. If the hardware for such things ever gets off the ground, expect them to snap up the software pronto. It actually looks pretty good, a whole lot better than Acrobat or Adobe Reader. – Charlie White

Press Release [Adobe Systems]