From [Rob
Weir](http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/math-markup-marked-down.html)via
[Slashdot](http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/02/2119253)
via the indispensable [Open Access
News](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html) comes the news
that two VERY important journals won't accept Word 2007 documents: “*Science* and *Nature* are not accepting
submissions created by Microsoft Word 2007”.
This is a very nuanced issue. Office Open XML format is, after all, a
standard and Microsoft have published plugins for pre-2007 versions of
Word.
What's wrong with that?
For one thing, I have written before about how automated citations and
bibliographies done in Word 2007 won't survive opening in older versions
of Word – they simply silently turn
into plain text. And the the *Nature* and *Science* people are noting
the same thing for equations only they turn into pictures, which is
worse.
Microsoft is not surprisingly trying to drive the pretty much stalled
upgrade cycle here: once you use some of the features in 2007 and try to
share with users of older versions of Word, even via the new standard
format, then documents will start breaking and there is apparently no
way to resolve the muddle (did I say muddle? must have been working in
the library too long and forgotten how to use rude words) without
forcing your collaborators to 'upgrade', even though everyone's 'using'
the new standard. If they gave away the new features then why would you
buy? Add this to the fact that the forthcoming Mac version of Word will
not support the VBA macro language, and will therefore break even the
simplest of macros that help integrate Word with your organization, and
I'd say that a move to OpenOffice.org is looking pretty good – if you are willing to accept a level of
fit and finish that is below that of Word.
(But see [the
comme](http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237155&cid=19368141)nt
from *Anonymous Brave Guy* in the Slashdot
thread about how ten year old TeX documents no longer work and compare
with [my
experiences](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2006/11/08/self_preservation_1)
with 16 year old Word docs which pretty much do work).
Peter Suber at Open Access news likes [this
advice](http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/math-markup-marked-down.html)
from Rob Weir:
> If Science and Nature need to update their templates, then I'd suggest
> they take a look at [ODF](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument).
> Not only does it use MathML for equations, but it is an open standard,
> an ISO standard, a platform and application-neutral standard that has
> [many
> implementation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software),
> including several good open source ones. If they need to update their
> processing, then they might want to make the smart choice now, the
> choice that increases their choices and flexibility going forward.
>
> <http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/math-markup-marked-down.html>
I'd agree that *looking* at ODF (that's the OASIS Open Document Format
for Office Applications) is a good idea, but I wouldn't trust the list
of supported applications at Wikipedia.
For example there's a link to a thing called *Coventi Pages*. I had a
look at that one this afternoon and I would not say that it supports
ODF. I managed to upload an ODF document but it lost all my styles, and
every time I added a paragraph it buggered up my formating and there are
bullet and numbered list buttons but no promote or demote (indent)
buttons. Almost as bad as the the [thing I looked at last
month](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2007/05/22/thoughtslinger).
That's not ODF support, that's partial support at best, and not
particularly useful partial support 'cos it will break real documents
pretty comprehensively.
There's Also a link to a thing called AjaxWrite. I tried that one with
and ODF text document and it told me 'format unknown' or words to that
effect. I'd strike that.
And what about Google docs? Well I've
[covered](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2006/08/22/writely_again) its
limitations here before.
Ok then, but surely the much-vaunted Microsoft Word plugins count? Not
according to my [findings in
February](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2007/02/09/odf-converters). Maybe
things are better now...
The main part of the list is dominated by variants of OpenOffice.org
whose format was the basis for ODF; initially even OOo couldn't claim
full support but I think things have moved on a bit since the release of
2.0. But even with OpenOffice.org, supporting the standard doesn't
always make for a great user-experience. Our resident seven year old,
who has never heard a broken record, says I sound like one, but I have
to say it again: the list formatting in ODF, with its hierarchical list
structures in a flat word processor structure and the confusing clash of
paragraph and list styles is [barely
usable](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2005/10/31/why_do_i_keep_going_on_about_html_export_from_word_processors%3F)
(unless you use our [ICE](http://ice.usq.edu.au/) template).
I have not covered the full list here, just the things I already knew
about or had time to look at this arvo, but if Science or Nature are
looking, then they'd better look hard cos a list on Wikipedia is, well,
a list on Wikipedia and I bet that both journals [use
styles](http://del.icio.us/ptsefton/usestyles) and will be very
frustrated by the way they round trip in and out of Word documents. I'm
off to to edit that Wikipedia list if I can figure out how to deal with
the fact that there are two different lists of software in (at least)
two places.