Eve Maler has a [little history and
analysis](http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/archives/2006/05/16/open-document-architectures/)of
some on-their-way -to-being-forgotten document formats and how they
relate to the current debate about word processing formats. If you want
to know a bit more about SGML vs the ill-fated ODA, as well as the
currently-hot ODF (OpenDocument Format) then it's a good read.
Eve quotes a [bit of
advice](http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=491921)
from Gartner about XML:
> **Recommendations**
>
> - **Users:** Recognize that you eventually will be saving your
> office product data in an XML-based format. Users that need ODF
> support today or need to comply with ISO standards should explore
> applications that support ODF. These applications may be cheaper
> to acquire, and enable different functionality, but the migration
> will not be inexpensive and will involve compatibility issues when
> exchanging documents with Microsoft Office users. If you need
> compatibility with Microsoft Office formats or cannot cost justify
> a migration, lobby Microsoft to support ODF and look for plug-ins
> that allow you to open and save ODF files from within Microsoft
> applications.
>
> - **Vendors supporting any application using document formats that
> deliver content to people**: Seek opportunities to leverage ODF,
> particularly "mash-up" approaches to content creation and sharing.
>
Well this is nice advice to users as far as the ODF bit goes, but misses
the big point that always seems to get missed when people talk about
word processing formats. I think Rita Knox and Michael Silver of Gartner
Research should have added these two little words: “[use
styles](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2005/09/13/opendocument_or_not_you_still_need_to_use_styles.)”.
I add them to all my posts about word processing, just about.
And as for the advice to vendors, “mash-up” approaches are great, but
the mash is not going to be too tasty if you try to work with any-old
ODF document. See [the post I wrote about
Writely](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2006/03/21/writely,__meet_the_ice_template),
and my [recent concerns](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2006/05/11) about how
Word might map to ODF. The list-formatting model in the OpenDocument
spec, and the interactions between ad-hoc lists, paragraph styles,
ad-hoc paragraphs and list styles across different applications is too
horrible to think about. Not to mention the fact that lists in ODF have
multiple levels, which are very hard to control via OpenOffice.org at
least.
The solution is to use templates like the ones available from the [ICE
project](http://ice.usq.edu.au/)(home page is a bit out of date, but
there will be a new one soon, with lots more doco, along with a beta of
the official 1.0 release). There we are able to “Mash” together word and
OpenOffice.org software quite successfully 'cos we teach people to use
styles.