OpenOffice.org is now providing support for small devices. The XMerge project allows for the editing of OpenOffice documents on small devices, and then merging those changes back into the original OpenOffice document. The merge uses heuristics to preserve formatting options in the original document that are not supported on the small device.

This process takes advantages of the open and well defined OpenOffice.org XML document format. Specifically, it is a standalone Java application which uses standard XML processing tools (Xerces, Xalan, JAXP) to perform conversion and merging.

Using XMerge, the OpenOffice.org file format is converted to a format that can be edited on the small device where the user can make modifications. Using the XMerge merging functionality, edits made can then be merged back into the orignal OpenOffice.org file.

XMerge convert and merge plugins can be implemented by third parties by following the direction in the "XMerge Document Conversion SDK". Such implementations fit into the XMerge framework as independent dyncaically loaded plug-ins.

OpenOffice.org will soon provide the ability to read and write small device documents supported by XMerge plugins from the "Open" and "Save As" dialogs though the XMLFilterAdapter. This functionality will be available for download as part of the next 642 developer release. You can browse the source for the XMLFilterAdapter here

XMerge plug-ins are available for the following small device formats:

• Palm AportisDoc
• Palm MiniCalc
• PocketPC Word
• PocketPC Excel (forthcoming)
• The Generic XSLT plugin

The XMerge team is interested in working with others to support additional small device word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. If you have an interest please contact the XMerge project owner, Mike Hayes at this email address