back to article Google rewrites dot-doc death note

Google’s plan to give old Microsoft Office file formats a quiet bullet behind the woodpile seems to have fallen by the wayside, with Mountain View quietly revising its feature announcement. Google's original announcement stated: The following features are intended for release to these domains on October 1st: Docs: Users no …

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  1. CADmonkey
    Paris Hilton

    As private parts to the Gods are we....

    ...they play with us for their sport.

    ( Lord Melchet)

  2. banjomike
    FAIL

    Have confidence in the cloud...

    ...we won't drop you in the crap in the future.

    Right!

  3. Fashtas

    Changed their minds?

    Why would you say they changed their minds?

    The first announcement said they will no longer support *DOWNLOADING* old MS Office formats, so does the second.

    They only re-worded it to make it more clear it was only downloading/exporting they were talking about. Nothing changed.

    1. Steve Knox
      Boffin

      Re: Changed their minds?

      You don't understand, Fashtas. El Reg is never wrong. So when they originally misread Google's announcement, reality changed so that Google's announcement itself was wrong.

      Google then had to change the announcement in order to make it consistent with what they'd actually done, in order to prevent their servers becoming out of sync with the new reality. Since Google's servers are so many and so well distributed, the shear forces would have ripped a hole in the fabric of reality big enough to swallow the planet.

      Since The Register's re-mis-interpretation is in line with Google's actual changes, the space-time rupture has been prevented. For now.

      1. Craigness

        Re: Changed their minds?

        It's Google, it's The Register, so it's a negative story. Besides, Drive is a failed product which only has a large "active user" base because it's forced on people when they sign up for a GMail account. It's like a ghost town there. Who even knew you could upload files?

  4. ratfox
    Stop

    Where is the change?

    There is no difference between the first announcement and the second announcement.

    "Download Google Docs in Office 2003-07 format" means exporting files from Google Docs to your computer in the old formats. That's what they say will not be supported any more in the first statement, and the new statement says exactly the same thing.

    The only difference is that now, they tell you how you can open the new formats on your computer if you are still with an old version of Office, and they make clear that importing old formats is still possible, contrary to the FUD.

    1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

      Re: Where is the change?

      ""Download Google Docs in Office 2003-07 format" means exporting files from Google Docs to your computer in the old formats. That's what they say will not be supported any more in the first statement, and the new statement says exactly the same thing."

      Except 07 used the new formats, not the old?

      1. Whitespace

        Re: Where is the change?

        I think ratfox typed from memory instead of copy / pasting

        At the time of this post the wording of the Google statement is:

        "The following features are intended for release to these domains on October 1st:

        Docs: The built-in exporting feature from Google Docs to Microsoft Office will now allow users to download Google documents as modern Office formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx), as opposed to the older formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) that were standard in Office 97-2003. For users who still use Office 97-2003, we recommend installing the free compatibility plugin from Microsoft, which will allow them to open modern Office file types."

        1. ratfox

          Re: Where is the change?

          Actually, copy / pasted right from this article…?

          After a quick look, It seems that the 2003-07/97-2003 confusion was a mistake in the original post from Google:

          http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/09/26/google-announces-huge-change-apps-will-remove-office-2003-2007-format-support-october-1/

  5. Eddy Ito

    Hmm

    "import Office files of any format"

    It doesn't specifically say MS Office so could I import any old long dead obscure file format as long as it came from some office type suite like ClarisWorks, IBM Works or how about Island Office?

  6. Michael Hutchinson
    Thumb Down

    They didn't have a change of heart...

    Google didn't back track, have a change of heart or anything. They just elaborated on their initial statement to remove any potential confusion.

    Talk about a non-story!

  7. James Pickett

    I have the MS compatibility plugin. It doesn't work.

    1. weenoid

      You're not doing it right. It works fine.

    2. English Bob

      I've never succeeded in getting Office 97 to read *.---x formats either. I must be doing it wrong, but I'm reasonably computer literate and have had several goes at it over the years. I'll refrain from adding an anti-Microsoft conspiracy theory at this point...

      1. weenoid

        As far as I'm aware the plugin only supports Office 2000 onwards.

  8. James12345
    Facepalm

    Just admit you were wrong

    Dear Reg, You got the story wrong first time round - just correct the original article and delete this effort to pretend you didn't.

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