ODF Now an ISO Standard

December 8th, 2006: The Open Document Format (ODF) has been officially name a standard this week by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

The XML-based open source format was first approved as an international standard last may, and has now been dubbed the standard title of ISO/IEC 26300:2006.

The format covers text, spreadsheet, database, and presentation files and is the darling of accessibility groups everywhere. The format is found native in open source packages such as OpenOffice.org and Google’s new online applications, and has been attracting increasing support from many organisations and governments recently over proprietary formats such as Microsoft Office’s.

The popularity of ODF has in no small part driven the creation of Microsoft’s own open standard Office XML. However, with its certification as a standard it now has a clear leg up over Microsoft’s alternative in the eyes of many.

One thing is for certain though, we’re now one step closer to eliminating document compatibility problems and long term archival security.

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