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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Standards (was Re: Simple string conversion from UCS2 to
 ISO8859-1)
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 17:09:11 +0100
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On 27/02/2025 08:57, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 26.02.2025 20:50, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Wed, 26 Feb 2025 07:38:06 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>
>>> ... e.g. the *.doc format was often named "de facto standard", but
>>> there was a long period of time neither a public document of that
>>> "standard" nor was it a standard in the first place ...
>>
>> That is still the case.
> 
> What do you mean? - That *.doc is still a de facto standard, or that
> it is still called so?
> 

..doc has not been the "de facto" standard for a very long time - .docx 
is, and has been for nearly 20 years.

> I've heard of the newer XML-based *.docx format that it is publicly
> documented and even an official formal standard. (If I'm misinformed
> about that feel free to correct that.)

Again - you are two decades out of touch here!  Yes, the OOXML formats 
are documented and are ISO standards.  No one (that's not an 
exaggeration) has read them - they are absolute monsters, full of errors 
and inconsistencies, and exist solely because MS was at risk of losing 
their contracts with US Government and Federal offices that required the 
use of open and documented file formats.  The level of bribery, 
corruption and abuse involved in getting these "standards" at ISO is a 
long, sad story that is way off-topic here.  And even with that, MS' 
software does not generate standard OOXML formats normally.  Much of the 
support in other software (such as LibreOffice) is based on reverse 
engineering - it is much less work than trying to read the "standard" 
documents.

(To be clear - MS is much more of a "team player" than it was twenty 
years ago.)

> 
> WRT the new XML-based formats all I can say is that I had a glimpse
> into docx samples and turned away in disgust.
> 

The OOXML formats are horrendous.  But don't judge them from documents 
produced by MS software - MS has never been able to make XML, HTML or 
other -ML documents of any sane quality.  For fun, take a .docx file 
that has seen a lot of action from various MS Office versions, then open 
it with LibreOffice and re-save it in .docx format.  The files produced 
by LibreOffice are worlds apart in their efficiency and simplicity. 
(It's still XML, and still inefficient.)  My record was taking a .xlsx 
spreadsheet file that had bloated to over 600 MB from Excel over many 
years, and reducing it to 20 KB by opening and saving it with 
LibreOffice.  (I am not claiming that is typical!)

>>
>> If you are trying to suggest that ISO 29500 (Microsoft’s “OOXML”) is in
>> any way a proper workable standard, then you haven’t read it.
> 
> What are you making up here? - I've not spoken of either "ISO 29500"
> or “OOXML”. - I therefore also haven't said anything about anything
> "workable".

OOXML is the format used for .docx, .xlsx, etc., and ISO 29500 is the 
ISO number of the standard.

> 
> My post had been about what some folks call "[de facto] standard".
> 

That is .docx - approximately OOXML.

Prior to that, MS Office had a brief muckaround with another XML format, 
and before that .doc was a binary format with no documentation and a 
format that changed with every version of the software.  Other software 
supported it to some extent, by reverse engineering.  Yes, at the time 
(prior to Office 2003), it was often referred to as the "de facto" 
standard, but in practice couldn't even work well between two different 
copies of MS Office if the versions didn't match or the computers had 
different fonts or printer settings.  (Yes, your computer's printer 
setup affected document compatibility with MS Office at that time.)