PowerPoint Blog
In a surprising move, Microsoft has decided to not include PDF export options in the upcoming Office 2007 product. This was the result of talks between Microsoft and Adobe breaking down, and the looming threat of an antitrust suit on Microsoft by Adobe on this issue. Even more surprising is that Office competitors like OpenOffice and Corel WordPerfect Office have provided this option for years now--and Apple allows any program on OS X to print to a PDF! So why the double standards from Adobe?
Here's what others are saying:
Microsoft Drops PDF From Office
Microsoft has decided to delete from the next version of Office an option to save documents in PDF after Adobe Systems threatened to take legal action.
"We offered to them that we would do this, and now we've unilaterally made the decision to do it," Microsoft spokesperson Jack Evans said on Friday. The company also will remove a feature to save documents as XML Paper Specification (XPS) files in Office; XPS is Microsoft's rival file format to the PDF file format.
More on the PC World site...
Talks with Adobe to use PDF break down: Microsoft
Microsoft's negotiations to use Adobe technology in its new Office business software broke down earlier this week and Adobe threatened legal action, Microsoft's top antitrust lawyer said on Friday. The previously undisclosed talks between the two sides centered around Microsoft's plan to allow users to save work under Adobe's Portable Document Format, or PDF, within the company's Office 2007 suite of applications and its new Windows Vista operating system.
Adobe objected to Microsoft building the "save as PDF" option into Office and Windows, arguing that the ability to save a document in a fixed document format, such as PDF, is a separate product and should not be free, Microsoft said.
More on the Reuters site...
Adobe yet to explain why no PDF in Microsoft Office
Microsoft's decision not to include the ability to save files to Adobe's PDF format in its upcoming Office 2007 product, after arguments with Adobe, is bad news for users. Adobe really needs to explain to the world why it has forced Microsoft to do this. At present, both Microsoft's open source office suite rival, Open Office.org 2.0, as well as Apple's Mac OSX operating system, provide the facility to save documents as PDF (Portable Document Format) files. The PDF has become a widely used defacto standard for publishing non editable paginated documents. An argument could be made that excluding the same facility from Office 2007 that is provided freely elsewhere is unfair discrimination.
More on the iTWire site...
Categories: microsoft_office, pdf
Archives:
April 2003 | May 2003 | December 2003 | January 2004 | February 2004 | March 2004 | April 2004 | May 2004 | June 2004 | July 2004 | August 2004 | September 2004 | October 2004 | November 2004 | December 2004 | January 2005 | February 2005 | March 2005 | April 2005 | May 2005 | June 2005 | July 2005 | August 2005 | September 2005 | October 2005 | November 2005 | December 2005 | January 2006 | February 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006 | May 2006 | June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 | January 2007 | February 2007 | March 2007 | April 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | August 2007 | September 2007 | October 2007 | November 2007 | December 2007 | January 2008 | February 2008 | March 2008 | April 2008 | May 2008 | June 2008 | July 2008 | August 2008 | September 2008 | October 2008 | November 2008 | December 2008 | January 2009 | February 2009 | March 2009 | April 2009 | May 2009 | June 2009 | July 2009 | August 2009 | September 2009 |
