Office files on the web
What do you do if someone sends you an office file? Usually, you download the file and open a separate program to view it. With WebODF, this experience can be simpler and safer. WebODF can show an office document in the OpenDocument format in a web browser.
The internet was originally meant as a platform for reading and writing files. Writing files directly from the browser did not really take off though. Modern webpages have forms where people can write comments and send them to be added to a comment feed. Blog systems, CMS systems and Wiki websites allow people to edit documents, but the experience is very different from working in the rich environment that an office suite provides. With WebODF, we are working towards making it possible to have the same experience in the browser as on the desktop.
OpenDocument Format is an OASIS standard. It is supported by many vendors.
Online office that you can trust
Trust is good, control is better.
With WebODF, you combine the advantages of the cloud and the control of the open source desktop. Your office documents can be accessed from anywhere but under your conditions. There is no need to agree to terms of service, since you can provide your own service or choose a hosting company you like and still use your version of WebODF.
Common standards between ODF and HTML
WebODF takes advantage of ever better supported standards such as CSS, HTML, DOM and JavaScript, collectively know under popular names like HTML5 and AJAX. This makes it possible to implement office features with small amounts of code, which in turn, makes WebODF compact and easy to grasp.
What browsers support
Browsers are becoming more powerful all the time. There are four popular brower families at the moment: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Webkit (Safari) and Blink (Opera, Chrome). The set of features that is needed to render ODF documents in the browser is supported by the latest browers version of all four families. A browser can do much more than simply render a webpage. Web pages can be full applications. On top of that, browsers can show generic XML files. The visualization is then done with CSS. What features of CSS are supported will always vary between browsers, so we take care to use those parts that work best across browsers.
