Microsoft to expand document formats

Microsoft is expanding its repertoire of document formats.

The company is expected to announce it is sponsoring an open source project to create a converter between Ecma Open XML - a set of file formats closely tied to Microsoft Office - and a Chinese national standard called Unified Office Format (UOF).

The software behemoth is also expected to make available beta versions of previously announced translators between Excel and PowerPoint and corresponding applications that support the OpenDocument Format, or ODF.

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The converters, to be available on open source project hosting site SourceForge.net, let people open and save documents in either the Ecma Open XML formats or ODF. An initial translator for Word was released earlier this year, while those for PowerPoint and Excel are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The beta software will work with the XP, 2003 and 2007 versions of Excel and PowerPoint.

With its planned UOF converts, Microsoft is taking a similar approach in sponsoring an open source project. Redmond decided to support UOF through a translator because of interest among Chinese government customers and institutions, it said.

The Beijing Information Technology Institute, one of the creators of UOF, will participate in the open source project, according to a Microsoft representative.

A beta version of initial converters is expected at the end of July and will become a final product early next year.

Martin LaMonica writes for CNET News.com