OpenDocument was developed in a completely open, publicly visible, vendor-neutral, royalty-free standards process that allows input from the entire user community

OpenDocument is one schema for text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents. There are no distinct schemas for the different kind of office applications.

OpenDocument is highly interoperable by making use of existing standards like HTML , SVG , XSL , SMIL , XLink , XForms , MathML or Dublin Core wherever possible.

OpenDocument has a package concept and can be used as default file format for office applications without disadvantages in file size or integrity.