“Why OOXML has never been, is not, and will never be a standard format unless Microsoft decides to completely redesign its office applications.”
TL;DR — If Microsoft had been sincere about making this a true open standard, OOXML could have been a proper open standard. But Microsoft chose to cripple and sabotage it, so that it could not be properly implemented across all platforms.
The linked article covers more about the OOXML’s implementation inconsistencies, complexity, proprietary dependencies, binary blob remnants, platform specific elements, and the whole process followed by Microsoft.
I remember this OOXML standard suddenly appearing back when many governments started to adopt the true ODF (Open Documents Format) a good two decades ago. Microsoft suddenly was touting OOXML as an ISO/IEC standard for all to use. It caused a wobble as wow here is Microsoft itself with an open standard. But most governments never fell for it on paper at least, like the Australian government who still stuck with ODF.
Yes, I know that basically ALL the governments who approved ODF formally as their standard to use, in fact actually do save files in docx (OOXML) in practice including Australia, UK, South Africa, USA, and more. This is the oddity governments in theory and principle vs governments in practice. Try sending an ODF format document to someone in these governments, and they’ll reply saying they can’t open it, please send in OOXML (actually most do not know what OOXML is, and they’ll call it MS Office, Office 365, or docx).
In fact, MS Office can actually save in ODF formats, but by default it saves to OOXML. In truth therefore, most governments are saving their documents in OOXML which is designed to break down the line due to its inconsistencies.
And governments in practice, determine then what businesses and citizens must use to interact with them, including non-profits. Ever see tenders requesting docx formats, CVs in docx formats, business plans to be sent in docx formats? It is a very sad situation, and the profit drive behind Microsoft is largely to blame for this.
In reality, the various open source office suites (which are mostly free) fully support ODF and try to keep up to date with the standardised version of OOXML. It is Microsoft that tweaks and updates things in the background to how they use OOXML, which breaks compatibility.
But don’t blame Microsoft. They’ve been very clever about this. It is us as consumers and governments who chose to buy the Microsoft products. We could have switched to free of cost office suites and all used ODF formats. That would have meant we did not all have to use the same office suite product, and we would have had greater compatibility between ourselves going into the future. But hey, the taxpayer is paying, and they’re also buying MS Office (whichever flavour) so no-one is going to question this. I mean, whoever got fired for buying IBM! What would we anyway do with all those surplus billions of dollars then if we did not spend it with Microsoft…
See https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/06/why-ooxml-is-not-a-standard-format-for-office-documents
