1. A method of enabling data stored in a file associated with a first application program A 1 to be read by a second application program that may not have data-sharing compatibility with said first application program, said method comprising: (a) defining, a priori, an application-independent data format that is agreed upon by all consumer applications, including said first and second application programs, respectively; (b) in the course of storing data in a first data file associated with the execution of said first application program, providing in said first data file instructions that are operative to convert the format of the data in said first data file to said application-independent data format; (c) in the course of execution of said second application program, whenever access of data stored in said first file of said first application program is required, causing said second application program to retrieve from said first data file instructions for converting the format of the data in said first data file to said application-independent data format; and (d) causing said second application program to execute said retrieved instructions for converting the format of the data in said first data file to said application-independent data format thereby retrieving the data from said first application program.