The US state of Massachusetts is to begin its move to an
Open Document Format (ODF) standard by using Microsoft Office
plug-ins, in a bid to ensure materials are accessible to disabled
people.
ODF was approved as an international data format standard by the
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) in May. A
month later, the Belgium government decided to adopt ODF across its
operations in a further boost for the open source format.
Massachusetts had scheduled a move to using ODF for all its
documents by January 2007. But disability campaigners have raised
concerns that office suites supporting the open format did not meet
accessibility criteria or work well with assistive technology for
disabled people.
In a mid-year statement, Massachusetts chief information officer
Louis Gutierrez said that technology under development would
eventually meet accessibility requirements and would allow the
state to implement ODF without compromising current accessibility
levels.
But he added that open format office suites were “unlikely to be
fully supported by assistive technology vendors” by the 1 January
target date.
Instead, Massachusetts now plans to use “translator software” –
also under development – that will allow Microsoft’s Office suite
to translate documents from Microsoft formats to ODF. This would
allow the state government to tap into assistive technologies that
work with Microsoft Office.
“We anticipate one or more of these projects to allow ODF
adoption to commence before 1 January 2007,” Gutierrez said.
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