Ranting about Document Standards
This morning I feel like ranting about document standards. Standards are there for a reason. The simple reason of making everything easier for everyone. Even though most people don't think about it, documents are everywhere and using a proper standard makes life bearable.
Working for a company that is moving in the right direction collaborative-wise, I can praise on the use of GoogleDocs as an option for creating/sharing documents. From my personal experience, Google is KISSing the right way. Keep It Simple, Stupid. It's not saying to keep it simple and that someone is stupid. Just keep anything Simple, and although it might seem different, keep it stupid. We can agree on it that sometimes even stupid things can be helpful.
The beauty of simple (read elegant) document formats are that they will be more likely to be compatible with several kinds of software such as document preparation, authoring, sharing and viewer applications.
Preparation of documents can happen in several ways when using Open Standards. Some users prefer flagship-bloated-everything-you-can-think-of-but-only-use-text-processing software to create documents. Meaning they kill a machine only for the sake of putting together some information into a proper structure. When preparing a document there's no need to make it flashy or even nice. Just get the content in such a way that you can present it using authoring software.
Authoring a document is the process of compiling the structured, gathered information which should now be knowledge, into something that can be consumed by external entities. Here you are free to use whatever pleases you. Honestly I could not care less since I'm quite ardent when it comes to my choice of tools. (Even my development environment is alien to the rest of the team :P). What matters most about authoring your document is the output. Whether it can be consumed in a fair way by the recipients. Thus, using a standard output format everyone will be appreciative of the result. Read that again. Standard output format, not dominating output format. The problem I have with most documents produced by people is that they make invalid assumptions and it result in friction and/or being upset.
Sharing will mostly mean collaboration on a document. When authoring a document, the author should try to accommodate the target collaborators and again not assume a standard. For example when collaborative documents are created in an enterprise, it should be made clear that a standard document format be used that is accessible by all collaborators. Mentioned in the link on Open Standards earlier on, it is mentioned that as a principle there should be no discrimination:
Open Standards and the organizations that administer them do not favor one implementor over another for any reason other than the technical standards compliance of a vendor's implementation. Certification organizations must provide a path for low and zero-cost implementations to be validated, but may also provide enhanced certification services.
I observe in my situation there are several suites and versions of those suites in use. For example:
- Microsoft Office: XP, 2003, 2007, 2010
- OpenOffice.org: 2.3, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
- LibreOffice: 3.3
The point I want to make here is that Microsoft Office changed file format with nearly every release mentioned and with the latest release, there are compatibility issues when users with older versions of Microsoft Office try to open received documents. On the other hand, all the versions of OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice will open the OpenDocument format. It is also mentioned that Microsoft Office extended support to OpenDocument format. Government institutions also start to follow standards such as The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa (CSIR). They have a disclaimer in their emails an on their website. This is proof that the industry strive to Open Standards as modus-operandi.
Viewers are generally used by the consumer or end-user. In my opinion it is a horrific assumption that the consumer use authoring software for viewing documents. Using PDF as a document exchange format is perfect for this purpose. It an ISO standard: ISO 32000-1:2008 (wikipedia) and thus there are several viewers available.
Mobile access is quite important in this age (2011) and having your document available in a format that is available via a smartphone does not need any thought. There are several PDF viewers available for mobile, but as this is still in the early stages for mobile, don't expect too much.
Taking into consideration the tools for the job, you as a user and/or author will make the world a better place by following these simple principles. And trust me on this: When you provide industry/web-standard documents, you are already making an impression on other people.