Is the odt format inferior to docx?

[dlazesz]

There are the two main document formats: ODT and DOCX
(Currently I’m only interrested in these two formats only.)

There is a thorough comparsion of the two format by Microsoft.

I think that, this comparsion is really one-sided and maybe outdated (as there is no creation date on the KB article).

Are there any other comparsion going into such details available for citing?

[asiersar]

I don’t know if there is such a better comparison.

Anyway, in your link I see a mixture of:

• DOCX vs ODT feature comparison;
• when you work on DOCX & MS Office, how the features will convert to ODT;
• Word vs Writer comparison;
• and some outdated (or incorrect) facts.

My feeling is that the comparison was made with MS Office in mind (not made from the LO point of view), so maybe it is not too useful, depending on what app you are using.

Examples:

• Content / Table of Figures (TOF) / Not Supported → That fact is false, even OpenOffice could create “Illustration Indexes” on ODT
• File Operations / Fixed File Format / Supported (Can save to .pdf and .xps file types) → That is about Word vs Writer, not about DOCX vs ODT
• Collaboration / Track Changes / Not Supported (When you save the Word 2007 document in .odt format, all changes are accepted) → Not true, see for instance this thread.
• Content / Frames / Partially Supported (When you save the Word 2007 document in .odt format…) → Well, that is about using Word 2007, not about what ODT can support.
• Formatting / Watermark / Not Supported → See this blog post from 2007.

And so on…

[dlazesz]

I accept this answer as I do not expect better answer. Somebody should make a fair comparsion of the formats and falsify all the wrong claims in the aforementioned document, because for a non-technical person this comparsion suggests to use MS Office with docx as odt is inferior.

[doug]

the key interoperability problem from my perspective is handling of Styles. MS hits the nail on the head there: “There is an increase in the number of styles after you save the document in .odt format, and all formatting in ODF is style based.”

[JohnHa]

.odt is far, far better than .docx.

Always save all files as .odt when using LibreOffice.

Always save files as .doc or .docx when using MS Word.

Using one file format with the other program will invariably lead to loss of data or formatting. See [Tutorial] Differences between MS Word (eg .doc and .docx) and LO files (eg .odt) for (much) more information.

[libraryOffice]

No! In Microsoft Word please always save files as .docx if your file does NOT contain macros and the .docm format only if your file does contain macros. Never save in the 11 year old doc format. In addition to docx files being safer, both docx and docm files are much smaller as they use compression. If you have a large document library, the space savings quickly adds up. The doc format is an old and inferior format that just won’t die. Of course, ODT is a great alternative in LibreOffice.

[dwbsovran]

The .docx format is the “open format” the world uses. If you communicate with the outside world and wish to utilize features, both sent and received, then .docx is your ONLY choice. Like VHS or Betamax, the winner is already determined. I currently have a problem with docx created in LO 5.x with hyperlinks NOT being compatible in LO 6. Can you believe that? ODT is great, but send a DOC to someone on MS Word and formatting is lost and they wonder what to H you sent them. LIBRE OFFICE must get in the game and be top notch with DOCX, a fully featured and fully supported format in the document field. This is just one of the little hang-ups that prevent people from moving away from MicroSatan.

[mikekaganski]

So you are saying that MS is unable to create a descent ODF import?

As to " I currently have a problem with docx created in LO 5.x with hyperlinks NOT being compatible in LO 6". This sounds like a regression - did you file a bug report on that? If not, please do.