Hacker News Reader

Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

I tried to open the (Dutch) DOCX that contains the official position paper of our government, but LibreOffice refuses to open it:

  File format error found at 
  SAXParseException: '[word/document.xml line 2]: unknown error', Stream 'word/document.xml', Line 2, Column 30060(row,col).

http://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/deta...

Great. Usually OOXML Word files at least open in LibreOffice, but this one seems to have some unsolvable weirdness. I don't get why they don't offer a PDF download — it, at least, is an open format that can be reliably opened on any OS. Or offer a plain text version, or simply post the paper on their website in HTML.

View on HN

Please complain to them [1]. They are required to publish that document as ODF, not DOCX. Alternatively PDF or HTML could be used. Using DOCX in Dutch government is against the standard [2], which is ODF 1.2.

[1] http://www.tweedekamer.nl/contact/contact#webform-client-for... [2] https://lijsten.forumstandaardisatie.nl/open-standaard/odf12

Done. The helpdesk representative actually mailed me the PDF version, and said that a PDF version should be forthcoming:

Bijna alle kamerstukken zijn als pdf terug te vinden. Zo te zien worden de recente eerst als doc gepubliceerd.

Apparently new documents can be posted as DOCX only (strange).

You are right to point out the open standard guidelines, but unfortunately, they are marked as comply or explain. This means that they are not mandatory if you have a valid reason not to be able to comply with them. In this case, the reason is probably "our civil servants are used to Microsoft's defaults", which is — as much as I disagree with this policy — probably enough to get away it.

simply post the paper on their website in HTML

This is the UK government advice. Hopefully it’ll percolate through other governments. https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/user-centred-design/choosi...

Works fine for me, but I've made a PDF version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2WvkUwBYadXb3pYVk1pWmIyekk...

Much appreciated. :)

Perhaps something on your end? LibreOffice (4.2.8.2) doesn't have a problem with the file on my system.

Interesting. This is LibreOffice 5.0.2.2.

Works in LibreOffice 5.0.3.2

my old libreoffice (Version: 4.2.4.2) opens it fine.

I guess it is a bug in LibreOffice 5.0.2.2. This is the default version included with Ubuntu 15.10.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com