National Archives Embrace OpenDocument

March 31st, 2006: The National Archives (NAA) will be the first government department to move to the OpenDocument file format as the Digital Preservation team migrates its current Xena preservation software to the OpenOffice 2.0 suite.

The NAA was one of the organisations involved in drafting the OpenDocument format and is performing extensive testing as the migeation to OpenOffice 2.0 goes ahead.

A direct step away from Microsoft Office, the NAA has chosen OpenDocument as it uses the Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard which does not require proprietary software to be read. Adhering to a standard like XML is important for archiving as whatever data is put in needs to be compatible with future software.

As a government organisation responsible for the preservation of many different types of material, the NAA cannot restrict submissions to one file format. OpenDocument gives it this flexibility along with the longevity required for proper preservation.

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