ODF 1.2 vs ODF 1.2 extended format

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#1

Hi, can someone provide some information or share his/her experience on features that are missing (possible breakages, recommendations) in basic ODF 1.2 format in comparison to the default ODF 1.2 extended (my main concern is Writer)?

I’m looking into using basic ODF 1.2 format mainly in order to get rid of “rsid” tags that pollute documents which I then use in translation software (OmegaT, CafeTran). Usually OCR’ed texts (and most other edited texts) need or have had some tiny corrections and that creates a lot of these tags that show up in my translation software and is just a burden. Right know my fast workaround involves copying the corrected (pre-final) text into plane text and then again into Writer before the final formatting (or sometimes I save it all as .doc and then again as .odt). I’ve just noticed that ODF 1.2 documents are leaner by default than their extended counterparts.

So is there anything major I should be concerned if choosing basic ODF 1.2? It seems I can’t save a fast copy in a different ODF format thus I can’t just work in both formats. If it is possible (maybe a headless conversion in Linux between odf-1.2 and odf-1.2 extended?), I would just safely try both formats.

#2

First, in my experience using LibreOffice with ODF 1.2 extended does not result in more tags as using Apache OpenOffice with plain ODF 1.2. Second, in OmegaT you can simply turn off tags in project settings. Third, you can iron out many tags, see the DOCX compatibility guide on the OmegaT web site, many tips are applicable to ODT files too. Thus, I would not bother much about changing the default format.

#3

I can’t tell about Apache OO, but the standard 1.2 format in LibreOffice doesn’t create those T tags with just rdsid numbers. Yes, OmegaT allows to remove tags, but from my experience it removes ALL tags (all bold, italic etc. and even new lines (shift+enter)). It seems that Mike’s answer introduces a way to keep a compatible format and get rid of these tags without being too much afraid to lose content.

#4

Look at Options-LibreOffice Writer-Comparison and disable storing “Random number to improve accuracy of document comparison”.

#5

Yes, I understand that it’s not strictly the answer to the question you’ve asked; but your ultimate goal should be served by this better than to switch to a format that doesn’t support all the features LibreOffice supports ATM.

#6

Thank you very much! Yes, this seems to do the thing and I agree that it is the best option to serve my needs as expressed in the question. (However, another thing I could (maybe) tackle by using a more standardized format is to have a better compatibility with MS Office as sometimes I send documents to users who have Office 2007 or later, which (I believe) only support normal ODF 1.2 or even ODF 1.1. (I usually test compatibility).)

#7

You will not improve compatibility by using ODF 1.2 vs ODF 1.2 extended. The “extended” uses the standard-mandated “extension” mechanism, and any standards-complying software that does not support an extension should simply omit it. Also, it would not allow you to identify which LO feature would be broken by using it. So, it’s only “I usually test compatibility” part that helps: you should specifically test if using features A, B and C works OK on round-trip, and stick to tested ones.

#8

(But you might still be forced to use ODF 1.1 if you need to support MSO 2007 (and maybe 2010) - because of lack of support for ODF 1.2 there.)

#9

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