Can Word open a .odt file?

The true will you free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

The standard was developed by a technical committee in the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) consortium.[3] It was based on the Sun Microsystems specification for OpenOffice.org XML, the default format for OpenOffice.org, which had been specifically intended "to provide an open standard for office documents."[4]

Initial release 1 May 2005; 9 years ago

OpenDocument 1.3 (a.k.a. "ODF-Next") As of January, 2014, the current state of a possible future version of OpenDocument specification is a working draft (a preliminary unapproved sketch, outline, or version of the specification). The OASIS Advanced Document Collaboration subcommittee (created in December, 2010) is working on an update of OpenDocument change-tracking that will not only enhance the existing change-tracking feature set, but also lay the foundation for the standardization of real-time collaboration by making change tracking compatible with real-time collaboration.[27][28][29]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office\_Open\_XML

Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML or OpenXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft[2] for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. The format was initially standardised by Ecma (as ECMA-376) and, in later versions, by ISO and IEC (as ISO/IEC 29500).

Initial release 7 December 2006; 7 years ago

The ISO standardization of Office Open XML was controversial and embittered,[18] with much discussion both about the specification and about the standardization process.[19] According to InfoWorld:

OOXML was opposed by many on grounds it was unneeded, as software makers could use OpenDocument Format (ODF), a less complicated office software format that was already an international standard.[18]

— InfoWorld

The same InfoWorld article reported that IBM (which supports the ODF format) threatened to leave standards bodies that it said allow dominant corporations like Microsoft to wield undue influence. The article further says that Microsoft was accused of co-opting the standardization process by leaning on countries to ensure that it got enough votes at the ISO for Office Open XML to pass; although it does not specify exactly who accused Microsoft.[18]

Not helpful. ODF is widely supported by various competitors to Microsoft. That is probably why he says it is outdated, which is plain wrong. Microsoft Office might not support it, but others do and the UK government just accepted it as the official document format used for exchange with the authorities along with PDF. So ODF is actually a sound format to use. If you need to exchange formal documents, use PDF instead.

You say: “Microsoft has obtained standards approval for their proposed file format, they have stopped supporting ODT to attempt to force all other Office applications to use their file formats.” I think that is untrue on its face. ODT is supported in Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 for Windows. Microsoft stopped using their own formats beginning with Office 2007 and have defaulted to the open standard OOXML file formats ever since. Something even OpenOffice and LibreOffice have yet to do.

You speak in Orwellian riddles.  You claim that what I said is false.  Yet, you say that OpenOffice has not yet been forced to use OOXML.  Well, actually the new versions will read DOCX files, but not create them.

OpenOffice supports both ODT and OOXML. The LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice supports read and write of .docx .xlsx .xlsm (Macro-enabled spreadsheets) and .pptx files. Other OpenOffice forks may or may not support all the file types. LibreOffice has a preference setting that allows the user to use OOXML file formats as the default file format. My comment was intended to note that although OpenOffice has read/write OOXML capabilities the authors have chosen to stick with ODT as the default file format.

There was a time that OOXML support in OpenOffice forks was terrible. Now it’s not so bad, at least in LibreOffice. It’s good enough that I suggest that LibreOffice users switch to OOXML file formats as the default, and rely on ODT only as a fall-back for situations where OpenOffice can’t successfully save without corrupting the file (which is no longer commonplace). I fully expect that at some time in the near future OpenOffice developers will have enough confidence to switch to OOXML as the default file format. Even if they don’t, the ability to switch is so simple it really doesn’t matter. For all practical purposes LibreOffice has full support of both ODT and OOXML.

I don’t think any company or organization is forcing any other company or organization to adopt OOXML. The standards body chose OOXML as the standard. Microsoft adopted the standard as default, which means most files will be in OOXML file format. OpenOffice retains ODT as the default, but has full support for OOXML (at least in LibreOffice). It seems to me to be a no-brainer for everyone to use OOXML as the default, but no one is forcing anybody to do so. Switching to OOXML in LibreOffice is trivial - just one click in a setting. No big deal there.

First of all: *Both* ODF and OOXML (strict) are ISO standards. ISO 26300:2006 and ISO 29500:2008, respectively. Hence ISO did *not* choose OOXML *over* ODF, but allows both formats equally.

Second: you're still missing the point: MS proclaimed and pushed OOXML as the new standard, at a time when MS itself was unable to write OOXML 'strict' (the standardized file format, which isn't a bad standard at all) but only created OOXML 'transitional' files (which are basically just proprietary doc binaries encapsulated in XML). Naturally - because MS dominates the market - this caused some distortion in the competition.

I'm not saying that either format is "better" - OOXML 'strict' is a nice format (elsewise ISO wouldn't have made it a standard). But OOXML 'strict' is only a part of the whole story!

3. it still doesn't explain, why MS removed support for ODF in Office for Mac (and *only* in the Mac version).

Sorry, but you are contradicting yourself. The standards body (not Microsoft) proclaimed OOXML as the standard. Subsequently, Microsoft adopted and then implemented the standard. You are correct in that full implementation of the  “strict” version of the standard did not happen until Office 2011 on the Mac. Office 2008 on the Mac is largely, but not completely, compliant with the “strict” OOXML standard.

Microsoft did not remove ODT support from Office for Mac. No version of Microsoft Office for Mac has ever had ODT support.