XML document creation on Android OS?

[alexanderrogge]

I'm interested in using a tablet PC running Android Honeycomb to create OpenOffice XML formatted documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows. I've been searching for days, but any information about a possible port to Android was years old. Finding Microsoft document creation tools seemed easy. My Android device could read Microsoft formatted documents with no special software downloads. I found the same thing on the iPad with iOS. Microsoft files are treated as native formats, but the software chokes when I put an OpenOffice XML file in front of it. It seems like the easiest thing to do is to drop OpenOffice XML and go with Microsoft formats. Am I missing something huge that's happened since the discussion about an Android port started before 2008, or do I have to find an alternative file format? It's getting harder and harder to stick with OpenOffice XML when a growing number of people with tablets can't read and edit the files. I'm getting scolded for using OpenOffice now like I'm the one using a closed, proprietary format. It does look that way, because they can open all the Microsoft DOC, XLS, and PPT files without thinking, and on any number of different software packages for Android and iOS. The other alternative is to get a tablet running a full version of Microsoft Windows, but I got interested in a tablet running Android, and I'd like to improve document compatibility with the many tablet users on the market.

[Villeroy]

And what do you want to tell us, apart from the well known matter of fact that this particular software does not run on your particular platform?
This forum is a forum from users for users. Nobody here can do what you want others to do. Please use the binary MS formats whenever they work for you. They certainly work pretty well with OOo/LibreOffice and many other applications. But do us all a favour and abstain from OOXML (docx, xlsx, pptx).

[RGB]

If by OpenOffice xml you are referring to ODF format, try here:
WebODF: work with your office files in the cloud, on the desktop and on your mobile

[alexanderrogge]

And what do you want to tell us, apart from the well known matter of fact that this particular software does not run on your particular platform?

There did not appear to be any specific information about a port of OpenOffice to Android or iOS. It was all speculation, outdated comments about how it didn't exist but may eventually be available. I only saw one comment from a user about how it would never be ported to iOS because of how Apple made it difficult to do this, but again, nothing firm and specific. It just seems odd that everything seems to be able to read Microsoft formats, but there's almost no effort to make sure that OpenOffice formats can be read and edited. So, I start looking stupid for putting out an ODT file, but everybody can read and edit Microsoft DOC files. It seems like the problem has become worse since I became an OpenOffice user when the software was still in beta. It's Microsoft formats everywhere, the de-facto standard for document transfer and editing, while OpenOffice and others are still largely unheard of.

How did this happen, and what can be done to make OpenOffice as much a priority to include compatibility for? Is it still a hopeless goal to try unseating Microsoft Office as the standard package of choice? To date, I still haven't seen a single school or office that didn't have Microsoft Office as the default application. From the government down to the public school, it's all Microsoft Office, and that's why documents distributed are all DOC, XLS, and PPT. I cringe when somebody starts sending out PPTX. Those PowerPoint files make OpenOffice choke. I have to grab a machine running Microsoft Office to read and convert to PDF, and I can't edit the PPTX files without Microsoft Office.

[rudolfo]

By the way an Android Smartphone is not supporting MS Office formats out of the box. It requires third party tools like Thnk Free Office or others to accomplish this. It just happens that these third party tools are mostly pre-installed on the common Android devices. And I really have my doubts if a smartphone should support all the features of a desktop application (as most of them are pointless due to the small size of the screen). Anyway the software is still there because there are now iOS and Android tablets that offer enough screen to work reasonably with an office document.
I don't accept to achieve WYSIWYG behaviour on my smartphone, so I am happy if I can open the raw XML content (because it is open and documented) and modify some typos of my office documents.

[Villeroy]

All this has nothing to do with OpenOffice.org nor LibreOffice. If all ODF applications for all platforms came from a single closed group of developers then we had another proprietary file format. This request falls into the same category as "I want the OpenOffice team to integrate email client, browser, web-page editor, movie creator and content managment system for all platforms".