Solved! Recognizing MS Publisher?

Javelin Dan · Newbie Joined: 06 Apr 2012 Posts: 3

Hello everyone. I’m not sure if I’m in the right forum, but it seemed like a likely place to start. The computer I use in the office is Dell “Dimensions 5150” running Windows XP Professional (2003). All my computers at home (four of them) run various flavors of Linux.

With support for XP dissolving next year, I’m working toward trying to convert my office set-up to Linux. So, I copied all my existing Windows based files to a flashdrive and tried to open them in one of my home computers that runs Ubuntu 10.10 which of course features Open Office 3.2 ( sorry, I don’t know the exact version number). Everything was recognized and opened beautifully except some newsletters that I had created in MS Publisher. I tried to open these with both “O.O. Writer” and “Impress”, but they simply didn’t open.

I do realize that I can convert these files to PDF format and access them that way, but would prefer not to in case I would want to extract and edit portions later. Is there a way to open these files with O.O.? Thanks for any suggestions

mgroenescheij · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:03 am Post subject:

Hi,

See answer from Corfy http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=152788&highlight=publisher

Martin
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Javelin Dan · Newbie Joined: 06 Apr 2012 Posts: 3

I clicked on the link you suggested and found the quote shown below. If this is the all-inclusive answer to my question, please signify and I will mark this thread "solved".

Third, there is nothing really comparable to Publisher within OOo/LO, and nothing that can open Publisher files. Although depending on what you are doing, you might be able to use Draw. I've done some one-page flyers in Draw before (Draw is closer to Visio than Publisher, however). You can also take a look at Scribus http://www.scribus.net. That is considerably more powerful than Publisher (although it can't open Publisher files, either... the only thing I know that opens Publisher files is Publisher), but it does have a bit of a learning curve, as it is closer to Quark XPress or Adobe InDesign than Publisher. [/i]

Corfy · Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:44 am Post subject: Re: Recognizing MS Publisher?

Javelin Dan · Newbie Joined: 06 Apr 2012 Posts: 3

OK - I guess I'll go ahead and mark this as solved. For whatever it's worth, I even tried to copy and paste the text from the Publisher files to a blank O.O. Writer document and it wouldn't recognize the script. I did however, realize that I can copy and paste the text from the Publisher document to a Word document, and O.O.will then handle that just fine. It's at least a way to be pro-active, but I guess there's still no way to "put the toothpaste back in the tube" and deal with a Publisher file after the fact. I thank you for your time.