[odf-discuss] Alex Hudson selected to develop HTML to ODF conversion toolkit

[Alex Hudson]

David Cartwright wrote:
> However, in my review of the list of projects I am very surprised that
> one fundamental project is missing:
>
> Native rendering of ODF by web browsers.
>
> Native rendering in the sense that the browser 'understands' ODF in
> the same way it understands HTML. The ODF isn't converted into HTML,
> it is an alternative format processed by the browser.

Apart from the complexity of doing that (the ODF->HTML translation has
been a pretty cheap win so far; browser layout engines these days are
actually pretty sophisticated) there is an issue of trying to get a
square peg into a round hole.

Browsers are designed to view web pages, and the basic issue is that ODF
documents aren't much like web pages, even when they're text documents.
Pagination is a huge issue: browsers don't really do it, and users don't
really expect it.

I can see the merit in your idea, but I think there are also downsides
as well.

-- 
Alex Hudson
IT Director, Stratagia Ltd.
P: 0845 226 17 13     W: http://www.stratagia.co.uk/
F: 0845 226 17 14     E: alex (at) stratagia.co.uk