Microsoft is saying that it took 120,000 users a month requesting PDF export for the monopilist to finally react. Even so, the feature won't be available until next year, and then requires customers to upgrade to a version of Office they might not otherwise care for.
The Inquirer notes, "So when it ships, this new Microsoft 'innovation' will match what was offered back in late 2003 in StarOffice [and OpenOffice]."
More likely, the reason for the addition was the decree from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (USA) that made the company's marketing people wake up. (MA is insisting that documents be saved in OpenDocument or PDF format from now on.) Microsoft insisted that it was not possible for a Word document to be saved in OD format -- not very intelligent of Microsoft marketing, because the excuses the monopolist uses for not exporting in OpenDocument format also apply to PDF, ASCII text, and other non-VBA-macro-bearing formats that Word exports to.
The other reason? There is no compelling reason for anyone to upgrade to the next release of Office, unless it is forcefed though new computer purchases. Adding PDFout, Microsoft marketing might be thinking, gives customers a reason to upgrade. I recommend that you spend the updade money on a PDFout function from the likes of pdf995.com, instead of on the upgrade.
With Microsoft discovering PDF, will Autodesk be far behind? At one time, AutoCAD read and wrote PS files, a relative of PDF. Perhaps PDFout will be a added to AutoCAD 2007 in order to sell into MA.
While you're at it, you could recommend www.cutepdf.com to your readers -- no ads, and just as decent a PDF creator!
Posted by: Wes Macaulay | Oct 04, 2005 at 08:36 PM