downloading MS Word docs to openoffice writer

wagarrison · Newbie Joined: 06 Dec 2009 Posts: 4

I don't have any windows software on my computer. I was told that open office would automatically convert docs from MS to writer. what do I need to do?
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William A Garrison

JohnV · Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:32 am Post subject:

Just open the .doc file with OOo.

wagarrison · Newbie Joined: 06 Dec 2009 Posts: 4

when I click on ch1 to download file, it downloads straight to the downloads folder, when I open it, it has a bunch of symbols and mumbo jumbo on the document. I am slow at this, can you give me step by step? I appreciate you trying to help. Do I need to reinstall openoffice.org?
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William A Garrison

JohnV · Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 2:36 pm Post subject:

What is the file's extension?
What is your version of OOo?
What is your OS?
From where are you downloading?

wagarrison · Newbie Joined: 06 Dec 2009 Posts: 4

ext is .pdf, version is 3.1, OS is Windows XP, I am downloading from the online class website for Kaplan University.
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William A Garrison

howard · Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:19 pm Post subject:

You need Adobe Acrobat for that not OOo.
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Howard
3.41 (Vanilla) on various versions of PCLinuxOS and XP Home (hardly ever used!)

wagarrison · Newbie Joined: 06 Dec 2009 Posts: 4

thanks a bunch, the adobe acrobat did the trick, you are the bomb!
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William A Garrison

howard · Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:03 pm Post subject:

You are welcome! Since my earlier posting was a bit terse here's a bit more about pdfs.

PDF stands for public document format, and is widely used to supply documents on the web - e.g. for government forms etc. as the software to read it is free. Acrobat is the best known one, but there are others such as kpdf on Linux. It's easy to create an acurate pdf from either writer or calc in OOo - at one time MSWord didn't have this facility and you had to buy another program, but I don't know whether this is still true as I've never owned it.

However, it's not so easy to open a pdf for editing, OOo won't do this. There is one Linux program (KWord I think) that makes an attempt, but was far from perfect last time I looked at it. It wouldn't handle embedded images properly. The only good pdf editor I am aware of is Acrobat's, but that's far from free!
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Howard
3.41 (Vanilla) on various versions of PCLinuxOS and XP Home (hardly ever used!)