Open Document Format (ODF) celebrates its 20th anniversary: ​​what impact today?

Officially adopted in 2005, the Oasis open Document Format (ODF) standard celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The opportunity for the community of free software and open standards to recall its role in promoting interoperability, technological independence and digital sovereignty.

CDo you have ODF? Open Document Format (ODF) is an open office format, standardized by Oasis since 2005 and has since become an ISO (ISO/IEC 26300) standard. On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, the free software community welcomes its role in promoting interoperability and digital sovereignty.

Thought from the outset as a format based on XML and independent of suppliers, ODF allows you to create, read and edit documents (texts, calculation sheets, presentations, etc.) on any system. To date, this is a really open format for office documents.

It is notably used as a native format in the LibreOffice suite, widely adopted by administrations and schools. Many governments, in Europe and elsewhere, have entered ODF in their public policies to guarantee lasting access and without restriction to digital documents. Even Adobe talks about it today!

Faced with proprietary formats, ODF remains an essential tool to guarantee the transparency, sustainability and freedom of use of documents. Its management by various software and platforms continues to expand, and its development continues via the Oasis Technical Committee, with a version 1.4 under standardization.

To celebrate this symbolic step, The Document Foundation provides for a series of technical publications retracing the evolution of the format. Several community events will also include interventions dedicated to ODF, especially during the next LibreOffice conference.