On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, der.hans wrote: > der.hans asked about saving data in XML format, even when using m$ > office. They were not aware that spreadsheet data could also be saved as > XML. der.hans mentioned that gnumeric uses compressed ( using an open > compression mechanism ) XML by default. He also mentioned he thought m$ > excel could save as XML. This was all in reference to having data in open > formats, rather than proprietary binary formats. > > Paul mentioned that updating from m$ office 97 might allow them to > standardize on XML as a data-storage format for internal use. Archive is > paper. Public use is currently PDF. I haven't actually seen them, but I'd lay heavy odds Microsoft's XML formats are not open, they are just as hard to interpret as .doc. Many organizations use XML to allow human readability. Microsoft is using it to for interop with other Microsoft products. Welcome to a Brave New World Microsoft is good. Microsoft is nice. Or better yet av093h2q44vh939v4h9w3ah4gvha8fgv4h38y908hg49y8w34gy a0v9uiahv98wherf9h22984h29h492yhgf8924hg82h4g02h4g4 d98gh8hg02h82084h0g82h4084y6t8y02t08hhg024hg084hg0h This is for the same reason that US military rifles don't use NATO rounds - if you are well supplied and your enemy is poorly supplied, use incompatible supplies.