Documents: tools and formats

Formats, and when each one fits

DOCXsince 2007

• — The document will still be edited
• — You need contents, footnotes and styles
• — Several people work on the same file

XLSXsince 2007

• — You need calculations, not just rows and columns
• — People read the data, not programs
• — The table will keep growing and recalculating

PPTXsince 2007

• — The talk is still being prepared and slides will change
• — You need speaker notes
• — Colleagues build the deck together

ODTsince 2005

• — The work happens in LibreOffice and stays there
• — Independence from a single vendor matters
• — The document is kept for the long term

DOCsince 1983

• — The file came out of an archive or an old back office system
• — The recipient runs Word 2003 and is not upgrading
• — There is no reason to write new files in it — only to read and move on

XLSsince 1987

• — An export from an old accounting program
• — The spreadsheet is going to someone on Excel 2003
• — The file sits in an archive and just needs reading

PPTsince 1987

• — A deck from an archive or someone else's flash drive
• — It will be shown on a machine with an ancient office suite
• — You need the content out, not to keep working on it

RTFsince 1987

• — Exchange between different editors and systems
• — An export from a program that cannot write DOCX
• — You need formatting without macros

TXTsince 1963

• — Notes, logs, lists — anything where only the text matters
• — The file has to survive any program and any year
• — The text is going into a script next