Another day, another complaint about Microsoft from LibreOffice. This time, LibreOffice accuses Microsoft of intentionally using overly complex XML to define documents and lock in users.
I know a lot of work has been done in these regards. But I want an era of simple documents, content over complicated styles.
Lot’s of good markdown-isk ways to make documents. And anything complicated can be made that just reads those files and formats the way people want (for reports, journal papers and such). People will definitely try to have their styles, but separating them from content would save so much time.
Markdown is great for static documents, but quickly becomes a nightmare for merges or dynamic content.
Still, Microsoft’s Office Open XML is the opposite, convoluted, hard for both man and machine to parse, overly verbose for simple cases and downright arcane for complex ones.
If only there was some middle ground,
Some kind of open document standard….
I know a lot of work has been done in these regards. But I want an era of simple documents, content over complicated styles.
Lot’s of good markdown-isk ways to make documents. And anything complicated can be made that just reads those files and formats the way people want (for reports, journal papers and such). People will definitely try to have their styles, but separating them from content would save so much time.
Markdown is great for static documents, but quickly becomes a nightmare for merges or dynamic content.
Still, Microsoft’s Office Open XML is the opposite, convoluted, hard for both man and machine to parse, overly verbose for simple cases and downright arcane for complex ones.
If only there was some middle ground, Some kind of open document standard….