Editing Microsoft Office (section)

==File formats and metadata==
Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007 used proprietary file formats based on the OLE [[Compound File Binary Format]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Microsoft Office File Formats |url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313118.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130119005122/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313118.aspx |archive-date=January 19, 2013 |access-date=February 2, 2013 |website=[[MSDN#Library|MSDN Library]] |publisher=Microsoft}}</ref> This forced users who share data to adopt the same software platform.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Stallman |first=Richard M. |title=We Can Put an End to Word Attachments |url=https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101203074546/http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html |archive-date=December 3, 2010 |access-date=October 30, 2010 |publisher=Free Software Foundation}}</ref> In 2008, Microsoft made the entire documentation for the binary Office formats freely available for download and granted any possible patents rights for use or implementations of those binary format for free under the [[Microsoft Open Specification Promise|Open Specification Promise]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Spolsky |first=Joel |date=February 19, 2008 |title=Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds) |url=http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014090710/http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html |archive-date=October 14, 2013 |access-date=April 21, 2015 |website=Joel on Software}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Jones |first=Brian |date=February 16, 2008 |title=Binary Documentation (.doc, .xls, .ppt) and Translator Project Site are now live |url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/02/15/binary-documentation-doc-xls-ppt-and-translator-project-site-are-now-live.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427143224/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/02/15/binary-documentation-doc-xls-ppt-and-translator-project-site-are-now-live.aspx |archive-date=April 27, 2015 |access-date=April 21, 2015 |website=Brian Jones: Office Solutions |publisher=[[Microsoft]]}}</ref> Previously, Microsoft had supplied such documentation freely but only on request.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jones |first=Brian |date=January 17, 2008 |title=Mapping documents in the binary format (.doc; .xls; .ppt) to the Open XML format |url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/01/16/mapping-documents-in-the-binary-format-doc-xls-ppt-to-the-open-xml-format.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023060210/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/01/16/mapping-documents-in-the-binary-format-doc-xls-ppt-to-the-open-xml-format.aspx |archive-date=October 23, 2013 |access-date=April 21, 2015 |website=Brian Jones: Office Solutions |publisher=[[Microsoft]]}}</ref>

Starting with Office 2007, the default file format has been a version of [[Office Open XML]], though different from the one standardized and published by Ecma International and by [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]]/[[International Electrotechnical Commission|IEC]]. Microsoft has granted patent rights to the formats technology under the Open Specification Promise<ref>{{Cite web |date=February 1, 2007 |title=Microsoft Open Specification Promise |url=https://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081010202435/http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp |archive-date=October 10, 2008 |access-date=October 30, 2010 |publisher=Microsoft}}</ref> and has made available free downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000<ref>{{Cite web |date=January 6, 2010 |title=Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180429085200/http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3 |archive-date=April 29, 2018 |access-date=April 17, 2020 |website=Download Center}}</ref> and Office 2004 for Mac OS X. Third-party implementations of Office Open XML exist on the Windows platform ([[LibreOffice]], all platforms), macOS platform ([[iWork]] '08, [[NeoOffice]], [[LibreOffice]]) and [[Linux]] ([[LibreOffice]] and [[OpenOffice.org]] 3.0). In addition, Office 2010, Service Pack 2 for Office 2007, and Office 2016 for Mac supports the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for opening and saving documents – only the old [[OpenDocument|ODF]] 1.0 (2006 ISO/IEC standard) is supported, not the 1.2 version (2015 ISO/IEC standard).

Microsoft provides the ability to [[metadata removal tool|remove metadata]] from Office documents. This was in response to highly publicized incidents where sensitive data about a document was leaked via its metadata.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Libbenga |first=Jan |date=February 2, 2004 |title=Microsoft releases metadata removal tool |work=The Register |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/02/microsoft_releases_metadata_removal_tool/ |url-status=live |access-date=October 30, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101203115727/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/02/microsoft_releases_metadata_removal_tool/ |archive-date=December 3, 2010}}</ref> Metadata removal was first available in 2004, when Microsoft released a tool called ''Remove Hidden Data Add-in for Office 2003/XP'' for this purpose.<ref>{{Cite web |date=July 8, 2008 |title=Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8446 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324000046/http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8446 |archive-date=March 24, 2016 |access-date=April 17, 2020 |website=Download Center |publisher=Microsoft}}</ref> It was directly integrated into Office 2007 in a feature called the ''Document Inspector''.