[what-the-grump]

Or you know, standard open formats if you prefer them. But then there is always that MS trolls in comments.

I converted, 100gb of xls/doc files to upload to SharePoint and netted something like 5x space savings just by resaving in an open format.

I am not surprised at all that Libre is better at opening old files, there are files that Microsoft wont let you open without going back into security settings and allowing them, we were converting a library that goes back nearly 30 years, lots of stuff dated 20+ years ago, why would you carry compat for this trash today?

[chris_wot]

Standard formats? I don't think so. The "standard format" they use for OOXML is not compliant with the strict version - so loose LibreOffice couldn't go to the standard to fix the compatibility issues.

[hajile]

It was never a standard to begin with.

Countries were refusing to use MS office because it didn't support open document standards. MS basically showed up to the spec committee with a bunch of MS Word documentation and said it was a new spec. It was flatly rejected, but then at the last second, a whole bunch of the committee changed their minds for no logical reason (I suspect they were simply paid off) and the "standard" was adopted.

Of course, it's impossible to write something compliant with their garbage and Office didn't comply with the "spec" in the slightest.

At the same time, MS refused to keep up with ODF standards in a massive case of malicious compliance.

In the end, it worked out for MS. They faked being open just enough for European governments to continue giving them huge piles of money for systems that are as locked down and proprietary as ever and consumers (like always) were the big losers.

[pmontra]

I remember that I was following the saga on Slashdot. It went on for months.

There is a Wikipedia page about that standardization process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open...

[xp84]

Is it not a lot better on that front than .doc was, though? I realize a lot of stuff can read .doc today but it's due to a lot of reverse engineering that happened over like 20 years because it was entirely proprietary.