5 ms·

Unsurprising this would be the case since LibreOffice strives for compatibility while MS would want clients to upgrade versions to newer, more lucrative edition

Unsurprising this would be the case since LibreOffice strives for compatibility while MS would want clients to upgrade versions to newer, more lucrative editions

what-the-grump 3y ago
Or you know, standard open formats if you prefer them. But then there is always that MS trolls in comments. I converted, 100gb of xls/doc files to upload to SharePoint and netted something like 5x space savings just by resaving in an open format. I am not surprised at all that Libre is better at opening old files, there are files that Microsoft wont let you open without going back into security settings and allowing them, we were converting a library that goes back nearly 30 years, lots of stuff dated 20+ years ago, why would you carry compat for this trash today?
- chris_wot 3y ago
  Standard formats? I don't think so. The "standard format" they use for OOXML is not compliant with the strict version - so loose LibreOffice couldn't go to the standard to fix the compatibility issues.
  - hajile 3y ago
    It was never a standard to begin with. Countries were refusing to use MS office because it didn't support open document standards. MS basically showed up to the spec committee with a bunch of MS Word documentation and said it was a new spec. It was flatly rejected, but then at the last second, a whole bunch of the committee changed their minds for no logical reason (I suspect they were simply paid off) and the "standard" was adopted. Of course, it's impossible to write something compliant with their garbage and Office didn't comply with the "spec" in the slightest. At the same time, MS refused to keep up with ODF standards in a massive case of malicious compliance. In the end, it worked out for MS. They faked being open just enough for European governments to continue giving them huge piles of money for systems that are as locked down and proprietary as ever and consumers (like always) were the big losers.
    - pmontra 3y ago
      I remember that I was following the saga on Slashdot. It went on for months. There is a Wikipedia page about that standardization process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - xp84 3y ago
    Is it not a lot better on that front than .doc was, though? I realize a lot of stuff can read .doc today but it's due to a lot of reverse engineering that happened over like 20 years because it was entirely proprietary.
GuB-42 3y ago
Back in the days, Microsoft took backwards compatibility very seriously, maybe more than anyone else besides mainframes. Going as far as making special cases so that applications that relied on some bugs or undocumented features continued working.
- coryrc 3y ago
  IIRC not for Word file formats. Usually only the previous version would definitely convert, any older and things started breaking. And it would always save in the newest version by default so everyone else has to update to edit your file (there were free readers, but they were separate programs and I don't know how popular they were).
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Yup, exactly this. And there would usually be an official plugin you could optionally install to read files from ~2 versions ago, presumably because businesses demanded it, but still wouldn't go back farther. I can't think of any other program that removed the ability to open older versions of its own files. Kinda crazy.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Aren't there only two word file formats, going back to the 1990s? I've never seen a conversion problem.
    - xeromal 3y ago
      DOC and DOCX right? I feel like there might have been some DOC 97 and DOC 2003 etc stuff going on but my memory fails me
      - lwkl 3y ago
        There are three .doc pre office 97, .doc after 97 and .docx.
    - iforgotpassword 3y ago

Unsurprising this would be the case since LibreOffice strives for compatibility while MS would want clients to upgrade versions to newer, more lucrative editions

what-the-grump 3y ago

Or you know, standard open formats if you prefer them. But then there is always that MS trolls in comments. I converted, 100gb of xls/doc files to upload to SharePoint and netted something like 5x space savings just by resaving in an open format. I am not surprised at all that Libre is better at opening old files, there are files that Microsoft wont let you open without going back into security settings and allowing them, we were converting a library that goes back nearly 30 years, lots of stuff dated 20+ years ago, why would you carry compat for this trash today?

chris_wot 3y ago
Standard formats? I don't think so. The "standard format" they use for OOXML is not compliant with the strict version - so loose LibreOffice couldn't go to the standard to fix the compatibility issues.
- hajile 3y ago
  It was never a standard to begin with. Countries were refusing to use MS office because it didn't support open document standards. MS basically showed up to the spec committee with a bunch of MS Word documentation and said it was a new spec. It was flatly rejected, but then at the last second, a whole bunch of the committee changed their minds for no logical reason (I suspect they were simply paid off) and the "standard" was adopted. Of course, it's impossible to write something compliant with their garbage and Office didn't comply with the "spec" in the slightest. At the same time, MS refused to keep up with ODF standards in a massive case of malicious compliance. In the end, it worked out for MS. They faked being open just enough for European governments to continue giving them huge piles of money for systems that are as locked down and proprietary as ever and consumers (like always) were the big losers.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    I remember that I was following the saga on Slashdot. It went on for months. There is a Wikipedia page about that standardization process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- xp84 3y ago
  Is it not a lot better on that front than .doc was, though? I realize a lot of stuff can read .doc today but it's due to a lot of reverse engineering that happened over like 20 years because it was entirely proprietary.

GuB-42 3y ago

Back in the days, Microsoft took backwards compatibility very seriously, maybe more than anyone else besides mainframes. Going as far as making special cases so that applications that relied on some bugs or undocumented features continued working.

coryrc 3y ago
IIRC not for Word file formats. Usually only the previous version would definitely convert, any older and things started breaking. And it would always save in the newest version by default so everyone else has to update to edit your file (there were free readers, but they were separate programs and I don't know how popular they were).
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Yup, exactly this. And there would usually be an official plugin you could optionally install to read files from ~2 versions ago, presumably because businesses demanded it, but still wouldn't go back farther. I can't think of any other program that removed the ability to open older versions of its own files. Kinda crazy.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Aren't there only two word file formats, going back to the 1990s? I've never seen a conversion problem.
  - xeromal 3y ago
    DOC and DOCX right? I feel like there might have been some DOC 97 and DOC 2003 etc stuff going on but my memory fails me
    - lwkl 3y ago
      There are three .doc pre office 97, .doc after 97 and .docx.
  - iforgotpassword 3y ago