Will I lose my book when I change over from Microsoft to off

nellie19g · Newbie Joined: 19 Nov 2007 Posts: 4

I really would like to down load Open office but I am scared that doing so will cause me to lose all my data I got saved. Do I down load office first or uninstall Microsoft first?

bobharvey · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:53 am Post subject:

You can have both openoffice and microsoft office on the same computer at the same time - they are different applications, why should they care the other one is there? You could add abiword, lotus symphony, ragtime, and textmaker for that matter - all of them will open microsoft .doc documents with various degrees of success, and none of them will stop msoffice working - it remains blissfully ignorant of their presence.

Windows users have got use to "file associations" where you click on the file and it opens in the associated application - obviously you can only have that work for one of them, and during the open office install there is a question asked that allows you to decide if open office will take over that function or not. You can alter it later with the long-standing windows tools for manipulating file association.

You can easily use right-click, open with to allow you to choose between them, or open the actual applications from their menu icons and use file-open to open the documents.

My advice - back up carefully, no matter what software you are using.
Use small test documents to gain confidence and test data exchange. There are differences in formatting, subtle differences in operation, and large differences over complex features like macro languages.

But, basically, it works.

nellie19g · Newbie Joined: 19 Nov 2007 Posts: 4

Thank you so much, that puts my mind at rest. I am going to download it now. I am really excited about the book feature and that is what caught my eye the most about it.

bobharvey · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:43 am Post subject:

Don't forget to back up everything you value!

nellie19g · Newbie Joined: 19 Nov 2007 Posts: 4

I do regular back ups so I have it all backed up, I keep every thing important in one disk and then I just make a new disk which can be done in seconds. I got an error when trying to run open office. It was an NSIS error

bobharvey · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:32 am Post subject:

Nsis? Hmm. Search the forums - I think one or two people have had that, I seem to recall there being a problem with MS installer versions. It will be in here somewhere, hunt for it. I've never had any problems at all.