It is not uncommon to not be able to view PDFs across platforms and readers. I have regular problems opening my colleagues PDFs on my mac.

I wonder what your criteria are for "truly" backward compatible?

And my experience has certainly been that the profusion of macros for TeX make it very difficult to maintain compatibility across authors, let alone across deep time. Don't forget that TeX is a programming language that happens to have document production rules built into it. In many ways it's a great environment (just ask the folks at arxiv) but it is also non-trivial to support. Again, ask the folks at arxiv.

Sent from my iPad

On 26 Jul 2012, at 09:44, "Panyarak Ngamsritragul" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> One critical problem of Word Processor formats, either MS Word's docx or OpenOffice or LibreOffice's open document formats, is most of them are not truely backward compatible.  I am sure you could face some trouble in opening your MS Word documents created a few years ago.  While this sort of trouble is not found in PDF reader, if I am not wrong.
> 
> Though MS Word is now claiming that they (try to) support open document formats, but this is still far from being perfect and it is still quite doubtful whether MS is willing to comply with the open document formats.
> 
> It is sad to know that MS Word format could become a common format.  If you are familiar with TeX, you should know that you can still work with the TeX files you created about more than 20 years ago...
> 
> Panyarak Ngamsritragul
> Department of Mechanical Engineering
> Prince of Songkla University.
> 
> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, David Groenewegen wrote:
> 
>> I think the other "problem" with Word comes from the word processor wars of the early 90s, when it was unclear what would be the most common format (remember WordPerfect? WordStar? MacWrite?). It made people nervous about its longevity.
>> 
>> But Word has been the default standard for creating documents for a longish time now - there can't be many people or companies who don't rely on it (and even if you don't I bet you still have the capacity to deal with it). If the ability to access the billions of Word documents out there disappeared tomorrow through some bizarre circumstance where every single one of the hundreds of millions of copies of Word (<http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2009/10/07/new-ways-to-try-and-buy-microsoft-office-2010.aspx> and all the various compatible tools (<https://docs.google.com/>) stopped working, someone would have to invent a way of overcoming this pretty quick smart.
>> 
>> Please note: I'm not saying that Word is perfect, or that I'm thrilled with this outcome, or that Word is better than <insert your favourite here>, or that it isn't the result of Microsoft exploiting its market share.
>> 
>> What I am saying is that a Word document is probably the last format we need to worry about for preservation purposes for the foreseeable future. Except maybe PDF.
>> 
>> D
>> 
>> On 26/07/2012 2:33 AM, Chris Eaker wrote:
>>> Thanks for pointing this out, Leslie. I did not know this about Docx
>>> files. I can see how this would be a better format for preservation of
>>> not only content, but also formatting.
>>> On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 7:57 AM, Leslie Carr <[log in to unmask]
>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>    If like to point out that Word files (docx) are an XML-based open
>>>    standard format, and that our prejudice against them is probably
>>>    rooted in historic antipathy towards previous proprietary formats
>>>    rather than any genuine problem with the the format itself.
>>> 
>>>    PDF, on the other hand, is also an open standard, but it makes reuse
>>>    very difficult.  10 years ago we thought that was a good thing. Now
>>>    we believe the opposite.
>>> 
>>>    Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>>    On 25 Jul 2012, at 14:43, "Chris Eaker" <[log in to unmask]
>>>    <mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]
>>>    <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>    Sorry if I'm asking novice questions (but that's what I am), are you
>>>    most interested in saving the content or the formatting or both? If
>>>    the content is the most important thing to preserve, then why not
>>>    just save the file as PDF and archive that as the master so you have
>>>    a copy with all formatting intact, but then save a txt for an
>>>    editable version that maintains content (assuming you need to edit
>>>    in the future)? I'm wary of archiving *.DOC/X files because they may
>>>    not be readable for the long-term.
>>> 
>>>    On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 4:49 AM, Brian Kelly <[log in to unmask]
>>>    <mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]
>>>    <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
>>>    I've always deposited an MS Word copy of my papers in my local
>>>    repository, together with a PDF copy.  I've done this because I've
>>>    been told of the importance of preserving the master copy of a
>>>    resource, rather than a lossy derivative version, such as PDF.  As
>>>    I've experience in having to recreate an MS Word file from a PDF
>>>    copy I know this can be a cumbersome process. I assume some authors
>>>    may prefer to deposit a PDF copy as this may be regarded as
>>>    providing a form of DRM by making it slightly more difficult to
>>>    process the file.
>>> 
>>>    What policies and practices do people have in place related to this?
>>>    A Google search for "Policies on depositing MS Word files" suggests
>>>    that PDFs are the norm.  Since the MS Office format has been an ISO
>>>    standard since 2007 I assume the proprietary versus open standard
>>>    format for deposits argument is not as strong as it was (subject to
>>>    caveats about support for ISO/IEC 29500 Strict
>>>    and the arguments about the validity of the standardisation process
>>>    which I don't want to go into).
>>> 
>>>    Thanks
>>> 
>>>    Brian
>>> 
>>>    --
>>>    --------------------------------------------------------
>>>    Brian Kelly
>>>    Innovation Support Centre, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, UK, BA2 7AY
>>>    Phone: 01225 383943
>>>    Email: [log in to unmask]
>>>    <mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]
>>>    <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
>>>    Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
>>>    Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly
>>>    Web: http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/
>>> 
>>>    --
>>>    Christopher Eaker, P.E.
>>>    Graduate Research Assistant
>>>    Data Curation Education in Research Centers
>>>    University of Tennessee, Knoxville
>>> --
>>> Christopher Eaker, P.E.
>>> Graduate Research Assistant
>>> Data Curation Education in Research Centers
>>> University of Tennessee, Knoxville
>> 
>> -- 
>> David Groenewegen
>> Director, Research Data
>> Australian National Data Service
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