ODF - open document format

Good news that
Minnesota and Texas may become the next states to adopt the OpenDocument Format as the required standard for their agencies, thanks to two state bills up for vote.
I expect Microsoft to apply aggressive lobbying to prevent this, but there are some polititions who try to act in the public interest so there is some hope that the proposed legislation will pass.

Both Sun and Microsoft are supplying OpenDocument translators for Microsoft Office - a good thing! Some people like Office and I believe in personal choice :-) BTW, If your document repository consists of Office documents, consider periodically using OpenOffice.org's batch option for converting a directory (and sub directories) of Office documents to ODF. I would strongly recommend doing this periodically and archiving the ODF documents with your Office documents: future-proof your access to our own work.

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