The ODF Format

1
The ODF Format

• Alex Mineer - Group 5

2
Agenda

• What is ODF? Why should I care?
• A Brief History
• Structure of an ODF File
• Accessibility in ODF
• Example of Accessibility
• Q A

3
What is ODF? Why Should I Care?

• ODF is short for Open Document Format
• It is an open format for saving office documents
  based on XML
• Designed as an alternative to proprietary
  document formats
• Intended to help avoid vendor lock-in (Office
  anyone?)
• Primary file type used by OpenOffice 2.0

4
A Brief History of ODF

• Developed by OASIS (Organization for the
  Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
• First meeting on the standard took place December
  16, 2002 for version 1.0
• Approved as OASIS standard May 1, 2005
• Approved and released as an ISO standard May 3,
  2006
• Version 1.1 (with improved accessibility
  features) approved October 19, 2006
• Version 1.2 currently in progress

5
Recent Developments

• Sept. 2005 - Massachusetts declares all state
  documents must be migrated to OpenDocument-compli
  ant applications
• March 2006 - National Archives of Australia
  decide to use OpenDocument as their document
  format
• October 2006 - Report commissioned by French PM
  recommends all French government publications be
  made available in OpenDocument Format

6
Interesting Aside

• Microsoft will begin using their own Microsoft
  Office Open XML format
• Currently being tested with Office 2007 release
  candidate
• Good timing once again on Microsofts part

7
Structure of an ODF File

• ODF files end with
• .odt - word processing (text) documents
• .ods - spreadsheets
• .odp - presentations
• .odg - graphics
• .odf - formulas and mathematical equations
• Can be either a single XML file or a zipped
  collection of XML files and directories
• Zipped version by far the most common

8
Structure of an ODF File (contd)
9
Structure of an ODF File (contd)

• From the ODF spec
• Content.xml Document content and automatic
  styles used in the content.
• Styles.xml Styles used in the document content
  and the automatic styles used in the styles
  themselves.
• Meta.xml Document meta information, such as
  the author or the time of the last save action.
• Settings.xml Application-specific settings,
  such as the window size or printer information.
• Content.xml and meta.xml will prove most important

10
Accessibility

• Extremely important - roughly 20 of the
  worldwide population has some form of disability
• ODF 1.0 was a bit lacking, but the 1.1 spec
  helped
• Proper encoding of authored table headers
• Logical navigation of page objects (I.e. images)
• Alternate text for image maps, drawing layers
• Clear relation between objects and captions
• Text hints for hypertext links

11
Example of Accessibility in ODF

• http//slappy.cs.uiuc.edu/fall06/cs492/Group5/pres
  ent/
• http//moodle.rehab.uiuc.edu/projects/odf/trunk/pu
  blic_html/

12
Questions?