"Dennis E. Hamilton" <> wrote on 03/30/2009
12:23:57 PM:
>
> RE: [office] Public Comment #217 - Authoritative Version of
Specification
>
> I think, as a practical matter, the defects that occur when one uses an
ODF
> implementation that is not the one used for the authoring are far more
> disturbing than the blemishes you remark about concerning disparities in
> PDFs derived from the as-authored ODF documents. There is a problem
with
> the current state of interoperability for ODF consumers in comparison
with
> the ubiquity and stability of PDF at this point.
>
The issue of course is not whether PDF is rendered more consistently than
ODF is. The question is whether the PDF that is initially generated is
accurate. For example, during the OOXML review in ISO we found many
examples, usually involving mathematical equations, where the generated
PDF varied significantly from the Word original. These introduced real
technical errors into the draft, in some cases changing the meaning of
spreadsheet formulas. A good amount of JTC1 NB time was chewed up
correcting such problems. This problem would not have happened with an
ODF or OOXML original, regardless of the rendering engine, since once
could always look at the XML source to resolve the intent.
-Rob
