Search Results for: odf

To be honest, I didn’t think I would publish my usual post about ODF over the festive period, as most people are busy with other activities and the document format isn’t a priority. Those who work are focused on the end of the quarter, while those who don’t work are focused on end-of-year celebrations. However, I then decided to write this post to highlight the importance of ODF during busy periods such as the festive season. After all, document format is always relevant. Using a proprietary format could mean handing over the moments we share with our families or the sales data we have worked so hard to achieve over the previous 12 months to others. Families organise gatherings, communities organise events, schools prepare holiday programmes and offices compile reports, schedules and shared documents. Everyone collaborates, often under pressure and almost always using different tools and devices. It is at times like these that the Open Document Format, or ODF, quietly proves its worth. Holidays are based on shared documents Behind every celebration is a surprising amount of paperwork. There are invitations, programmes, menus, budgets, volunteer lists, seating plans and announcements. These documents are shared with relatives, suppliers, communities, and

I decided to start the current campaign, with one blog post per week focusing on the different aspects of Open Document Format, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the standardisation by OASIS, which happened in May 2005. My hope was to raise the interest around ODF, which is the document format that every conscious user of office suites should adopt in order to maintain full control on his intellectual property (even if we are not professional writers or researchers, the content of our documents is our intellectual property, and we have the right to decide when, how and with whom we want to share it). My articles were targeting LibreOffice users, as they have the privilege – over other office suite users – of creating documents (and I am not referring only to text, but also to spreadsheets and presentations or drawings) with the only program adopting ODF as native document format. I wanted to strengthen their understanding of ODF, and explain in detail the enormous value of the open and standard document format they are using in comparison with the closed and proprietary Microsoft office document format, which is unfortunately the most used worldwide to maintain Microsoft lock in

This new version of the native LibreOffice document format standard marks the 20th anniversary of the only open document format for office applications Berlin, December 3, 2025 – The Document Foundation announces that OASIS Open (www.oasis-open.org), the global open-source and standards organisation, has approved the Open Document Format (ODF) for office applications v1.4 as an OASIS standard, which is the organisation’s highest level of ratification. The release of ODF v1.4 coincides with the 20th anniversary of ODF’s adoption as an OASIS Standard. Since 2005, ODF has served users as a vendor-neutral, royalty-free format for office documents, ensuring that files remain readable, editable and interoperable across platforms. Several governments and international organisations, including NATO, the European Commission and countries across multiple continents, have mandated ODF for their operations worldwide. ODF v1.4 maintains full backward compatibility and improves developer documentation, adds better support for assistive technologies for accessibility, improves professional document formatting and visual design capabilities, and expands features for data analysis and technical documentation. These updates reinforce the Open Document Format’s position as a comprehensive solution for office productivity and document creation. “ODF provides a vendor-neutral foundation for office productivity and collaboration. With v1.4, the standard continues to evolve, supporting cloud

Reliable data flows, verifiable signatures and predictable structures are essential for digital identity systems, which touch every aspect of modern digital life. They authorise transactions, confirm requests and guarantee security policies. In this context, the Open Document Format (ODF) offers a transparent, computer-readable foundation for verifying the authenticity of documents and ensuring their long-term integrity. Each ODF file is a structured ZIP container with a consistent internal layout. It contains a set of XML files that are always located in the same position. These files include meta.xml for metadata, manifest.xml for the list of files and relationships, content.xml for document data and styles.xml for presentation rules. The files are either ODT (text), ODS (spreadsheets), ODP (presentations) or ODG (drawings). Because everything is in XML format and in the same location, identity systems can analyse the content without searching for it as they would with OOXML files, which vary greatly depending on the application used to create them. Identity systems can therefore focus on specific parts of a file rather than scanning raw binary blocks, which are present in OOXML files. This is important for signing, integrity validation, metadata extraction and policy enforcement. When documents move from one identity platform to

Digital sovereignty, or the ability of nations, organisations and individuals to control their own digital destiny, is a fundamental issue of the 21st century. At the heart of this challenge lies a seemingly trivial question: who controls the format of the documents that contain our intellectual property or personal information? In this context, the standard and open Open Document Format (ODF) – the native format of LibreOffice documents, also supported by other suites – is the fundamental technology for those seeking true digital independence. Digital sovereignty includes the ability to control access to one’s own information without depending on third parties, to make independent technological choices based on one’s own needs, to ensure independent access to strategic data without depending on the commercial interests of Big Tech, and to maintain this technological self-determination in the face of market consolidation. When government agencies, businesses, or citizens store their documents in proprietary formats controlled by Big Tech, they surrender part of their sovereignty and depend on these external entities to access their own information. Why document formats are important for sovereignty Document formats are infrastructure, which—like roads, power grids, or telecommunications networks—are fundamental to the functioning of modern societies. Consider what happens