Microsoft Office document corruption: Testing the OOXML claims

“Summary

“In this post I take a look at Microsoft’s claims for robust
data recovery with their Office Open XML (OOXML) file format. I
show the results of an experiment, where I introduce random errors
into documents and observe whether word processors can recover from
these errors. Based on these result, I estimate data recovery rates
for Word 2003 binary, OOXML and ODF documents, as loaded in Word
2007, Word 2003 and in OpenOffice.org Writer 3.2.

“My tests suggest that the OOXML format is less robust than the
Word binary or ODF formats, with no observed basis for the contrary
Microsoft claims. I then discuss the reasons why this might be
expected.”

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