OpenDocument Format (or ODF for short) is the worlds leading document standard as maintained by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), and was first adopted as an international standard in 2005 by ISO/IEC JTC1 SC34.
Choose the best fit
One size does not fit all
OpenDocument Format provides a comprehensive solution to exchange documents reliably and effortlessly across different products and devices. No longer are you restricted to a single product or vendor to fit all your needs - you have the opportunity to choose the 'best fit' everywhere.
A global standard
We live in a time where people and organisations you have to interact with all around the world - customers, employees, citizens and vendors - work with a multitude of devices (workstation, laptops, tablet, mobile devices) from different vendors in many different circumstances. ODF is the simplest solution to get access and share without any compromise on functionality.
No longer is the Office suite the only product that can reliably show the content of your documents. Get rid of all the issues with vendor based formats like .doc, .xls, .wpd and .ppt - thanks to ODF it has never been more easy to write software to produce or consume documents.
The future starts now
Reliability
Office application vendors have come and gone, and even market leaders with a de facto monopoly have vanished from the market - making it almost impossible to access the precious content of billions of documents created with their products. What else than a widely adopted international standard can you trust to still be available in a hundred years from now? OpenDocument Format is ready to help your documents stand the test of time.
ODF is broadly supported across the industry by major commercial vendors like Microsoft, IBM, Google, as well as by open source projects like OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, Calligra and Gnome Office.
Smart devices, smart documents
What are smart documents?
Although the reliability of ODF and the freedom to choose the most suitable (best of breed, price/quality, security, accessibility) products instead of expensive bundled solutions are already plenty of reason to go with OpenDocument Format, the standards offers more than just the doing what we've always done better.
ODF allows you to create 'smart documents' that embed structured information you can use to enhance the functionality of documents to integrate with applications or devices. So that when you mention the name of a person in a document, you can click on his or her name to call them directly. Or they contain information that can help you manage your business intelligently.
integrate with the web
Showcase: WebODF
ODF is a rethinking of how we should store office documents. It is based on web standards where possible, which gives it some unique capabilities. Did you know that with a little javascript you can open ODF documents in a normal browser just like you open a web page - without plugins, without other software on your device and even without internet connection? No other office format offers that kind of flexibility.
Reduce complexity & cost
For developers
It doesn't really matter which language you want to develop software in - Java, Python, Perl, Ruby C++ or .net - there are many good software libraries (both commercial and open source) that make it almost trivial to access any part of a document in your applications. Take a look at the list of applications, or try out one of the many ready made code examples yourself.
What is new in ODF 1.2
OpenDocument Format v1.2 is a major update of the standard, that consolidates five years of standards work. Exciting new features include:
- a 100% bugfree and reliable, cross-product spreadsheet formula syntax
- improved change tracking
- a flexible metadata mechanism that allow for smart documents
- advanced electronic signatures
