openoffice and microsoft office interoperability

ctaclas · Newbie Joined: 24 Mar 2005 Posts: 1

Hi, I work for the hawaii state public libraries, and i'm exploring the possibillity of giving the public computers openoffice as an alternative to microsoft office. I am very interested in the ability to create microsoft word format files, as well as pdf files. I downloaded and installed open office 1.1.4, i have microsoft office 2000 professional 9.0.6926 SP-3, running on windows xp with sp2.

i created a .doc file with open office. nothing fancy, just a couple of bullets and some indenting. i later opened it with microsoft word, modified it, and attempted to save. when i saved it, word crashed. every time i try to modify it with word it crashes. i can modify it in open office no problem.

to test i created a file in word. i opened it in openoffice and modified it. i opened it in word, modified it, and again it crashed on saving it. the changes were not saved.

is this a known issue?

i uploaded the document in question to a webserver, but when i downloaded it to test it, it allowed me to modify it in word just fine, so thats another funny problem

anybody else have these sort of problem?

thanks

RubenKonig · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 12:17 pm Post subject:

I never noticed that. Sometimes complex layout is screwed up after conversion, but I could always save OOo-produced doc-files in MS word. Also, I never got complaints from colleagues whom I sent OOo-produced doc-files.

cfaber · Newbie Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 3

Hi, I'm a newbie and did a search of the forum on this exact topic. I have the same problem that this person described, I think a year ago. Any document I create or modify in OO and save as a .doc, then open in word 2000, crashes Word 2000. No one ever posted an explanation or a solution to this problem. Does anyone know of one?

I am running the exact same verson of Word 2000 that the original poster was running (9.06926 SP-3), BUT I am using the most recent open office (2.0.3). I would love to be able to use OO, but I need interoperability with Word 2000.

The original post is quoted below. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Chris

dfrench · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 8:30 pm Post subject:

To find out if it is a known issue, you will need to access the open office issues through www.openoffice.org
A tongue in cheek response is that this appears to be a problem with another product. To stand a chance for this to be resolved, you will need to create the simplest document in which the issue occurs; ensure that it is repeatable by others; provide created .DOC file and an indication of what is wrong with the file; register with openoffice; file the issue. Please see http://qa.openoffice.org/issue_handling/pre_submission.html

cfaber · Newbie Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 3

This problem appears to be known, though I am not entirely sure. I found one issue: #64857 "exported to word file crashes word" Unfortunately it does not say it crashes "Word 2000" specifically, and the language is a bit unclear, so I am not really sure if it is the same problem or not.

The submitting person refers to a table in a document that, after being saved in Writer, when opened in Word, crashes word. My problem occurs regardless of what the document contains. It also happens EVERY time: save a file in OO 2.0.3 in .doc format, open it in Word 2000, make changes, hit Save -- and whamo, Word 2000 (SP3) crashes. Always.

The issue I found in the database has been desingated "OOo Later" I am not sure if I should post to it -- or create a new issue, due to the differences (the table), and the lack of clarity regarding the version of Word involved.

Any thoughts dfrench? Thanks in advance for your feedack. Smile

dfrench · Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 1:14 am Post subject:

I suggest that you add your simplest file and description of problem to the issue #64857. The comments seem to indicate a lack of people resource to fix at this time. Additional information may assist whoever takes up the issue.
I can assure you that the problem is not universal as I have routinely transferred files to and from Word2000 from OOo2.0 on WIN XP. I am not in a position to be categoric about OOo2.0.3 though.
You might like to compare the .DOC files at the byte level resulting from creating the same document from scratch in WORD 2000 and OOo2.0.3 to see what is being done differently

cfaber · Newbie Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 3

Thanks for your help -- I will do as you've suggested.

I'm not a "look at the byte level" kind of guy however. Smile

My temporary solution is to save everything off of OO in .rtf format, which opens in Word 2000 with no problem at all.

Thanks again.

Chris