The Open Document Specification about the manifest.xml file

Question

The "Oasis Open Document Specification" says in Page 709 "17.1 Introduction" the Information stored inside the Manifest.xml file should be:

• A list of all of the files in the package.
• The media type of each file in the package.
• If a file stored in the package is encrypted, the information required to decrypt the file is stored in the manifest.

The first two points are clear but I don't understand the third point. What do they mean with "the information required to decrypt the file is stored in the manifest"?

Answer 1

It's a rather cryptic way of saying that in order to decrypt the file you'll need some information from the manifest (manifest.xml within the package, which is never encrypted) such as, for example, which encryption alogorithms have been used.

You will of course also need the password!

You can read more in relevant section of the ODF 1.2 standard. And a useful blog detailing a developer's struggles can be found here.