Digital documents in proprietary formats often become inaccessible within a few years due to undocumented changes to the XML schema that are intentionally employed for lock-in purposes. To avoid this problem, it is advisable
Open Document Format Archive
07 Nov 2025
Long-term archiving with ODF: a future-proof strategy
31 Oct 2025
ODF format security: encryption, signatures and metadata management
Open Document Format (ODF) is an open standard for office documents – texts, spreadsheets, presentations and more – that is flexible and interoperable. As with any other digital format, its security is a key concern, as ODF files often contain sensitive information that, without adequate protection measures, can be exposed, tampered with or tracked.
This post
24 Oct 2025
Make your ODF files accessible: a simple guide for everyone
People without disabilities have no problem viewing documents on a computer screen, but there are people with visual impairments or who are blind who use screen readers and keyboard navigation. ODF files have everything they
10 Oct 2025
The artificial complexity of OOXML files (the PPTX case)
This is the third and final post on the topic of the artificial complexity of the OOXML format. This complexity is the result of careful design aimed at preventing interoperability. Developers have to deal with
03 Oct 2025
The artificial complexity of OOXML files (the DOCX case)
The complexity of the OOXML format is linked to its design and was deliberately created to make the format more difficult for non-Microsoft software developers to implement. Compatibility issues are caused by a veritable
27 Sep 2025
The artificial complexity of OOXML files (the XLSX case)
The post, published on 18 July 2025, which explained why an artificially complex XML schema, such as that used by Microsoft 365 (formerly Microsoft Office) files, is in fact a subtle tool for locking