What is an OFD file?

The OFD train is slowly entering the station
Carrying the long journey of electronic document management
Clothed with the morning light, full of hope--
Driving in the national version of the standardization of documents on the sunny side of the road.

1, OFD is what
OFD is the English acronym for Open Layout Document (Open Fixed-layout Document), is our national layout document format standard - "GB/T 33190-2016 electronic document storage and exchange format - layout document".
So what is a layout document? Version of the document is with Word (doc, docx) and other streaming documents relative to the format of independent, fixed layout, curing the presentation of documents. Version of the document is not easy to modify, and in different devices in the display effect remains unchanged, while the flow of documents will change according to the device layout display.

For example
A doc format Word document, using Word and WPS to open, easy to change the layout, content rearrangement phenomenon, the same Word document, open in different versions of Office will occur inconsistent situation. The layout of the document is not affected by the device, the layout is fixed. In the layout, layout, fonts, font, font size and other aspects of paper documents to maintain full consistency. Version of the document format features make it a serious class of electronic document publishing, digital information dissemination and archiving of the ideal document format.
Version of the document on behalf of our work and life is very familiar with the PDF document, OFD document is China's independent research and development, the independent development of version of the document format standards. On the basis of PDF to join the many application scenarios based on the development needs of our society. It can be said that OFD and PDF positioning consistent with the same layout document format, but OFD after the first, blue.

2, OFD's R & D history and significance

In 2009, led by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the General Office of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission and other nine departments to establish an inter-ministerial joint meeting on electronic document management, responsible for organizing and coordinating the management of the national electronic documents, and issued the "Interim Measures for Electronic Document Management".
In November 2010, the Joint Conference entrusted the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to take the lead in organizing the Working Group on Electronic Document Storage and Exchange Format Standards, which started the preparation of China's independent version of document standards.
In August 2011, the compilation group completed the content of the draft standard of "Electronic Document Storage and Exchange Format Clerical Layout Document" (OFD standard), and carried out a pilot trial in a number of industry sectors across the country.
In October 2016, OFD was officially released as a national standard (GB/T 33190-2016).
The Specification for the Format of Electronic Official Documents of Party and Government Organs, promulgated in December 2016, explicitly requires that "the bearer format of electronic official documents is OFD".
The National Standard for the Series of Electronic Certificates issued in November 2018 clearly stipulates that "electronic certificates use OFD format".
In the Announcement on the VAT Invoice Comprehensive Service Platform and Other Matters in 2020 (State Administration of Taxation Announcement No. 1 of 2020), it is clearly stated that "the format of the VAT electronic general invoice layout file is OFD format"
"After PDF, why does China still need to establish the OFD format standard?"
First of all, from the application level, in the past, there is no uniform standard for layout documents, the domestic application of the situation is very confusing, CEB, SEP and so on more than a dozen different vendors of the format standard. Format is not uniform, inconsistent access interface, incomplete support for application requirements, resulting in communication and interoperability difficulties, can not be archived for a long time. And the domestic version of the document application needs and very urgent. The situation requires the development of domestic applications to meet the needs of the unified file format standards.
Secondly, from the technical level, OFD has a series of technical advantages. First, OFD is based on XML technology to describe the document data, streamlined volume, open format, conducive to understanding, long-term readable and usable; second, OFD according to the characteristics of our needs in various fields to expand the characteristics of a more in-depth fit the application needs; third, OFD standards can support domestic cryptographic algorithms, is a strong guarantee of document security, but also the document has the legal effect of the basic conditions; the fourth and the most important point, OFD is the most important point, OFD is a unified document format standard to meet the needs of domestic applications. Is the most important point, OFD standards are autonomous and controllable, the country and then the need to do the above mentioned extension of OFD, especially in our country's party, government and military serious types of documents in the field of application, can not be controlled by external vendors, we have the right to speak on their own standards. These advantages are PDF or some previous domestic manufacturers of private document formats do not have.

3, OFD's current and future
Before the release of OFD standard compilation, the format has been in the Ministry of Land and Resources, Audit Commission, the State Intellectual Property Office Patent Office, the Central Archives, Tianjin Archives and Beijing Archives and other units of the pilot application in 2015, and in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of the CPC Central Committee's Foreign Liaison Department, Dalian, Chifeng, Qingdao, Dezhou, and other ministries and local units of the e-portfolios project has been carried out in applications.
With the official release of the standard, the next thing to do is to implement this self-developed technical standard of China into the software development and more applications in the electronic document industry. 2016, the Electronic Document Management Promotion Alliance was established in Beijing, with a total of more than 60 enterprises or organizations becoming the first batch of the Alliance's members, among which many enterprises such as Digital Technology, Foxit, and so on, are developing products in line with or in support of OFD standards, with the product forms Many of these companies, such as Digital Technology and Foxit, are developing products that comply with or support the OFD standard, with product forms covering terminals and servers, and supported systems including Windows, Linux, and mobile platforms. With the further extension of the OFD market, there will be more and more enterprises participating in it to jointly promote the development and application of OFD layout documents.
The OFD e-portfolios series of standards were released in 2016, the e-license standard for OFD was introduced in 2018, the unified format of electronic invoices for OFD was released as a public notice in 2020, and the relevant technical specifications of OFD for archiving are also being planned. After the initial application in the field of electronic documents, archives and other areas, the follow-up will be quickly promoted to the electronic bills, electronic contracts, electronic medical records and other areas one after another.
OFD version of the document format integrates the country's high-quality industrial resources, and is conducive to the eventual formation of PDF and other relevant foreign standards of competitive advantage, and help to promote China's version of the benign development of related technologies and industries. At present, major domestic office software vendors and layout manufacturers have supported the standard, developed a variety of different products for Windows, Linux and mobile platforms. With the arrival of the 5G era, the new base