Novell Releases Open XML Converter

By Greg McNevin

March 7, 2007: Novell has come through with its promise to promote interoperability between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office 2007, and become the third group to release and Open XML/Open Document Format translator in as many months.

The company says that the translator works for both Windows and Linux versions of OpenOffice and enables users to both save and read documents in Microsoft’s Open XML format natively.

The translator is available now on Novell’s site, however, it is not the only one currently out there. Sun recently released its own translator to enable conversion between Open XML and Open Document Format (ODF), while another Microsoft-backed group rolled out version 1.0 of their own OpenXML translator in February.

The widespread release of translators should quiet down the rumbling rivalry between the opposing formats, however, with ODF being chosen as the default standard by many governments and Microsoft pushing its own format so vigorously, the fact that the two formats can talk to each other may not quiet the war overall. Particularly considering ODF has been dubbed an ISO standard ahead of Open XML.

Currently the translator is for word documents only, however, Novell has plans to release similar translators for OpenOffice’s Calc and Impress spreadsheet and presentation components.

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