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Open Office compatibility with MS Office ?

Discussion in 'Software Apps' started by macx, Mar 10, 2008.

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  1. macx TechSpot Guru

    Just took possession of a new/used laptop w/XP Pro sp2 and the OpenOffice
    apps.

    Transferred some Excel files onto it from my desktop and the OpenOffice
    equivalent worked fine to open and modify those Excel files.

    When I tried moving them back to the desktop, the MS Office files would not read the OpenOffice Excel equivalent.

    AFAIK, both the MS Office and OpenOffice versions are the latest.

    Any info on this? Would be nice if they'd work "both ways"

    Thx!
    macx, Mar 10, 2008
    #1

  2. kimsland Ex-TechSpotter

    kimsland, Mar 10, 2008
    #2

  3. Rick TechSpot Staff

    For the most part, MS Office documents open in Open Office just fine; however, Open Office documents are not supported by MS Office.

    So when you save your documents in Open Office, make sure you save them as .doc and NOT .odt. Same goes for .xls and .ppt as well.
    Rick, Mar 10, 2008
    #3

  4. Didou Bowtie extraordinair!

    Didou, Mar 11, 2008
    #4

  5. macx TechSpot Guru

    Do I put that on the computer with OOffice, or on the computer with MS Office? The one I tried to transfer the OO excel file back to is a co machine and I'm not allowed to install anything on it.

    I will for sure do that on my own desktop tho - if it has to go
    on the receiving machine rather than on the machine with OO.

    (Edit - I see the add on has to go on the machine that has MS Office on it as an addition to it.
    Well, I can do it on my personal machine anyway.)

    Thanks!!
    macx, Mar 11, 2008
    #5

  6. Rick TechSpot Staff

    Using a plug-in is fine, but in OO, it is very easy to pick .doc instead of .odt during the "Save As" box dialogue and save your document in a format that Office understands. That would solve your issue and no installation needs to be done. :)

    The plug-in, much like saving your document as .doc can suffer from formatting issues though. It works pretty well for the most part, but be aware that documents may not be pixel-perfect between the two.
    Rick, Mar 11, 2008
    #6

  7. macx TechSpot Guru

    Well, well!

    Of COURSE I missed that little tidbit!

    Will have to give it a try.

    Stands to reason there'd be a way to make it compatible
    going back to MS Office.

    Thanks!!
    macx, Mar 11, 2008
    #7

  8. Tedster Techspot old timer.....

    In openoffice, you need to save the files in MS office format. Otherwise it defaults to openoffice format.

    Also in the next release of OO, it will allow import/ export of DOCX .

    For the most part OO is 100% compatible. You just need to pay attention to the file formatting.
    Tedster, Mar 12, 2008
    #8
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