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A comment on Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (2008). Parent comment

Re:Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated?... by jordigh on Sunday September 11, 2016 @02:00AM (#12472187)
But the old formats are also (mostly) documented by Microsoft. Only once did I have to reverse-engineer a magic number, and only to get something working with Excel 97:

http://phpexcel.codeplex.com/discussions/71551

For the most part, with Word I get better compatibility in LO with the old binary formats than with OOXML. If someone sends me .docx and it looks garbled, it's easier to ask them to resave as .doc than to try to get them to produce .odt

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Re:Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated?... by chris_wot on Sunday September 11, 2016 @04:22AM (#12472495)
If you have the time, you should consider filing a bug report.
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