OpenDoc is a defunct multi-platform software componentry framework standard created by Apple in the 1990s for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Object Linking and Embedding (OLE).

OpenDoc development was transferred to the non-profit Component Integration Laboratories, Inc. (CI Labs), owned by a growing team of major corporate backers and effectively starting an industry consortium.

These documents can then be opened on different networked machines of different operating systems, on which the OpenDoc frameworks can substitute suitable components for each part, even if they are from different vendors.

The format quickly changed from a simple one using tags to a very complex object oriented persistence layer called Bento.

Taligent was formed as a primary objective of AIM, adopted OpenDoc, and promised somewhat similar functionality although based on very different underlying mechanisms.

OpenDoc progressed, but Apple greatly confused developers by suggesting that it should be used only for porting existing software, but new projects should instead be based on Taligent as the presumptive future OS for Macintosh.

[7] Starting in 1992, Apple attempted to replace MacApp development framework with a cross-platform solution called Bedrock, from Symantec.

Apple proposed merging existing MacApp concepts and code with Symantec's to produce an advanced cross-platform system.

As a result of Taligent and Bedrock both being Apple's officially promised future platforms, little effort had been expended on updating MacApp.

The development team realized in mid-1992 that an industry coalition was needed to promote the system, and created the Component Integration Laboratories (CI Labs) with IBM and WordPerfect.

Novell announced at the Brainshare conference, a plan to break up most or all of its products into OpenDoc components, beginning with WordPerfect applications and then its NetWare operating system.

It acknowledged that its operating systems lack a component architecture, and that Microsoft would never license the source code for OLE or COM, so Novell needs to support those also via OpenDoc.

CI Labs never publicly released the source code, but licensed it to developers for feedback, testing, and debugging.

Lexi from Soft-Linc, Inc. is a linguistic package containing a spell checker, thesaurus, and a simple translation tool which WAV and other components use.

Apple's 1996 release of ClarisWorks 5.0 (the predecessor of AppleWorks) was planned to support OpenDoc components, but this was dropped.

With the discontinuation of OpenDoc, the simulations were rewritten as Java applets and published from the Center as The Constructing Physics Understanding (CPU) Project by Dr. Fred Goldberg.