Agreed! I remember back in the day when they first created the docx format. Such bloated garbage. I think an empty file was like 100-200 KB. And PowerPoint files are unreasonably huge too
Depends on what you mean by “better”. I have looked at the xml content before and never got the sense I could edit it anyhow, so any perceived benefit to it for me is far outweighed by the ginormous file sizes.
OOXML is over 600 pages, yes. With lots of contradictions and filler words btw. And a “standard” (with scandals abound) that has most of the format as proprietary extensions. And MS Office/365 doesn’t even keep to it, so other office suites never have as good support of the format as MS itself.
Use ODF to save your documents. MS started their “standard” because of it anyway, fearing losses in their customer base (that bound them to Windows).
That’s doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
It’s a hugely important format used by countless archived documents.
We can’t just find out one day that nothing can read xlsx.
Actually, nothing can really read xlsx expect from Microsoft themselves. They wanted to get an “open” standard so they could be used in European public administration. But they also did it in a way so that nobody else can really implement their whole standard.
Agreed! I remember back in the day when they first created the docx format. Such bloated garbage. I think an empty file was like 100-200 KB. And PowerPoint files are unreasonably huge too
Docx is bloated XML, but much better than the binary formats before.
Depends on what you mean by “better”. I have looked at the xml content before and never got the sense I could edit it anyhow, so any perceived benefit to it for me is far outweighed by the ginormous file sizes.
I remember seeing an article about how the xlsx format description was several hundred pages in length.
OOXML is over 600 pages, yes. With lots of contradictions and filler words btw. And a “standard” (with scandals abound) that has most of the format as proprietary extensions. And MS Office/365 doesn’t even keep to it, so other office suites never have as good support of the format as MS itself.
Use ODF to save your documents. MS started their “standard” because of it anyway, fearing losses in their customer base (that bound them to Windows).
That’s doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
It’s a hugely important format used by countless archived documents.
We can’t just find out one day that nothing can read xlsx.
https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000398.shtml
Actually, nothing can really read xlsx expect from Microsoft themselves. They wanted to get an “open” standard so they could be used in European public administration. But they also did it in a way so that nobody else can really implement their whole standard.
ODT format is way better than DOCX.
That’s not true, although nothing can read it with the accuracy of Excel due to the complexity and lack of documentation on certain features.