[misswaterfairy]

> They are using Microsoft formats instead of the open-source one.

They will need to focus on Microsoft's formats for the foreseeable future because of the sheer amount of archaic, but still vitally important, government processes which depend on them.

Once Euro Office gains a significant foothold in those government processes, then they'll have the market power to influence. And, hopefully, force change in Microsoft's behaviour by forcing them to compete against a cheaper and just as capable open product suite.

[RetroTechie]

They need to focus on archaic government processes which rely on document formats that require proprietary software to view properly, while good open source software for the same task exists. And where lacking, focus on improving open source support for a particular task.

A good start would be to cut use of this OOXML Transitional format entirely. Default to LibreOffice's default formats, and (perhaps) support OOXML Strict where it helps transition.

That way any government employee saving their work in OOXML Transitional or other proprietary format, would automatically stick out as a dumbass who failed to do their job. Pass documents that are published through some validators / allowed-format checkers, and the public only gets stuff that's viewable with software of their choosing.

None of this is hard. It's mostly about changing defaults & a bit of employee training.