

Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1 - cooldeal
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/09/26/google-announces-huge-change-apps-will-remove-office-2003-2007-format-support-october-1/

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EvanAnderson
Given that there's no further development happening at Microsoft on the DOC,
XLS, and PPT formats it's unclear to me why there's any advantage to Google,
from a code maintenance standpoint, to removing these formats. If Google was
having to invest labor in maintaining the export functionality I suppose I
could understand, but I would think the export code is long-since debugged and
working. What makes the cost of maintaining this old feature so high as to
warrant its removal?

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Shooti
Also worth noting that the article has since been updated to clarify that it's
only the 97-2003 format which has been dropped. Export to 2003-2007 .doc .xls
and .ppt formats are still supported. Plus from the way it's phrased it seems
like _import_ from 97-2003 formats will still be supported, you just can't
export them that way.

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alanh
Okay, linkbait headline, then.

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timdorr
It was via a clarification from Google PR. The article as originally submitted
was correctly reporting, as the message from Google indicated a dropping of
all .doc, .xls, and .ppt format export support.

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azim
Before we get out the pitchforks, Google is still supporting the current
Microsoft formats (.docx, .xlxs, .pptx). If you're still running Office 2003
or older, you can install a compatibility pack from Microsoft to support the
current file formats. (<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074>)

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Shooti
Plus they've since clarified that only the 97-2003 format is being dropped,
export to 2003-2007 .doc .xls .ppt is still supported.

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niggler
We need a real competitor to google docs, especially the spreadsheets.

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dredmorbius
LibreOffice. It's old-school local app though, not cloud.

There are several other Free Software tools that will provide spreadsheet
compatibility, Gnumeric being among my favorite. Also the KDE office suite,
KOffice.

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fafner
They are working on a Web version called LibreOffice Online. I don't know the
current state. But last year they already showed a quick demo.

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dredmorbius
Thanks.

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niggler
I'd like to have a longer discussion on the topic with you. Check my user info
and shoot me an email :)

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n-gauge
nooooo..... I still use word 97 on my windows 7 laptop as it does everything I
need (even in 2012!). Office is just to fancy nowadays and takes up to much
space - I got my word 97 install to 10 megs.

Oh well - rtf it is then.

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barbs
Have you tried Open/LibreOffice? I also find the latest versions of office too
flashy, and the open-source alternatives much smaller and simpler.

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mayanksinghal
And slow and really really buggy (and ugly, but that doesn't matter as much).
I love Ubuntu but this is one thing that always require me to switch to
Windows on a dual boot machine.

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sowhata
Life would be soooooo much easier without Microsoft's closed formats. As nice
as they are, they are a royal PITA when you are not using Windows. Sometimes
you just need the text and images/other embedded media, not the fonts and
other window dressing. Those can be added at view time if they are truly
needed.

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eckyptang
Like all those closed incredibly hidden evil standards that they publish here
for interoperability?

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc313105(v=office.12...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc313105\(v=office.12\).aspx)

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fluxon
This is a wrong move. Recentism trashes bidirectional accessibility. Stable
standards are not de facto useless.

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hackerchic
That makes sense. Not a lot of people still use the older microsoft office
formats 97-2003. Do current Mac's and PC's still support those older formats?

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guilloche
Finally, It is time to retire these outdated formats that bothered the world
for so many years. Horay for google.

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sowhata
.csv can be imported into Excel to make .xls.

.txt can be imported into Word to make .doc.

.html can be imported into either Excel or Word.

.ppt? No comment.

.csv, .txt and .html are much easier to work with across different operating
systems.

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fafner
.csv only works for data. It doesn't work if you use any spreadsheet
functionality.

.txt lacks any kind of formatting.

I don't know the current state of Word .html-Export. But in the past (late
90s/early 00s) it was known for being amazingly bad and using IE-extensions.

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eckyptang
It's actually very good and always was. There were no extensions that were
browser specific.

These were, if you check out output out, simply commented out metadata and
custom prefixed CSS rules that allowed it to be imported back into Word if
required without losing any information that was lost when exporting to HTML.
You could remove all these with a text editor (or a regex) and it'd knock
perfectly good HTML + CSS out.

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fluxon
Very belated 2nd point: No tantrums.

Yeah, Google, Marissa left. Get over it. Stop with the petulant feature
gutting. Who are you trying to impress?

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duncans
Odd, I thought one of the main reasons they bought Quickoffice was the deep
knowlege these guys must've had of .DOC, .XLS etc

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recoiledsnake
Did they announce this previously or are they giving just a 5 day notice(only
3 working days given the weekend)?

A lot of users are going to get irritated at having to change their workflow
to have a copy of Office to re-save documents before uploading them. If you
need to have a copy of Office around to save them in the new format, then some
of the savings by using Google Apps is diminished.

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jlgreco
The article as far as I can tell does not say anything about importing those
formats, only that they are ending support for exporting them.

How many people are both "modern" enough to be using Google Docs, but
sufficiently out of date that they need to _export_ the old formats? I am
guessing sufficiently few that Google doesn't really care about them. If their
copy of Office is that old, how old is their browser? Can their browser even
supported by Google Docs?

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vajrabum
You forgot to ask, how many people need to export to a specific older version
format to support their colleagues or customers.

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jlgreco
Fair point, but I am guessing the answer again is "few". Most people probably
send out PDFs if the technology situation of the receiver is that rocky.

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ygra
Most technical-minded people who are aware of the distinction between the
various formats.

I didn't get the impression that Google Docs was only used by those. We
probably won't see an outcry, though, because the people getting bitten by the
change (and there are lots of smaller businesses who don't really see a need
to upgrade to current Office versions) aren't that vocal on the net.

