OpenDocument for your organisation

The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is the office document file format that has been defined and developed by the OASIS consortium.

This file format has been developed on the existing native file format of the OpenOffice.org office suite (version 1.0) and has been designed in order to become the standard file format for office applications. It is used by OpenOffice.org, IBM Symphony, and other office suites such as KOffice, TextMaker, Google Docs and Adobe Buzzword.

The OpenDocument file format is redefining the I.T. Industry as it is the only standard and open document file format for office suite on the market.

OpenDocument Format was approved as an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 26300) on May 2006. It can be freely implemented by anyone without restriction and by any software application.
In contrast to other file formats, OpenDocument allows the use, the editing, the exchange and the archival of office data in a standard file format that is both widely supported and vendor neutral. The OpenDocument Format has been designed in order to become the industry standard for the office file format. In this regard, the several vendors and organizations (Sun Microsystems, IBM, Adobe, KDE, Google) that have teamed up in order to design OpenDocument have worked hard at making sure this format could reach its goal.
OpenDocument is hence positioned as much more than an open office file format; it is an ISO standard expected by the market in order to make a long term use of office data and documents (>30 years).

OpenDocument is thus not just another document file format.

OpenDocument encapsulates every information and metadata related to the document in XML files stored in its open and standard format. OpenDocument is thus the key element for managing the documents and content that are at the core of the decision and operational processes of the organization. In this regard, ODF provides the availability of documents and data on the very long term while unlocking them from the constraints imposed by other office file formats.

The power of XML backed by the relevance of the standard make OpenDocument one of the key element of the SOA (Services-Oriented Architectures) and Web Services.

This is why ODF offers a viable solution to put the data first while making the applications slip in the background, leaving the data unaffected by any vendor's lock-in. Thus it is not surprising that OpenDocument has gathered strong momentum among many governments and administrations.

Thanks to its experienced team, Ars Aperta has an outstanding expertise on the OpenDocument file format. While some of its members have been at the vanguard of the creation of this format, others contribute regularly to the OpenOffice.org project.

OpenDocument can help your organization in various ways:
  • OpenDocument garantees you the total control over your data,
  • OpenDocument can ease your reliance on specific vendors,
  • OpenDocument allows for a perennial use of its file format while providing a real archival capacity on the long term (>30 years),
  • OpenDocument helps you by becoming the standard output format for any document across the organization.