Corrupt file

[dyno d]

Question from a newby.

is it possible for Open Office to corrupt a .docx email attachment?
i recieved a .docx email sent from a computer running MS Windows 7 word and it appears that the attachment has corrupted on opening the file in Open Office 4.1.5
is this a possibility or has the sender accidentally sent the file already corrupted from his computer.

dyno d

[robleyd]

Can you explain the series of events you undertook, and any error messages you got that indicate the file is corrupt?

[RoryOF]

Also, unless you need to edit the file, ask them to send it in PDF format.

[dyno d]

i am the secretary of a club and another committee member and myself were working on a new constitution. he sent the new constitution to me in a .docx file and i opened it up in Open Office 4.1.5. while looking through the document i noticed that any clause referred to had the clause number missing and the wording size was smaller after the word "clause." i forwarded the mail to another email account on another computer which has Windows 365. when i opened up the attachment the file was as it should have been and all clause numbers were there. so Open Office must have corrupted the file somehow.

[robleyd]

Please see [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files. OpenOffice is not an Office clone; if you need to work with docx files on a regular basis you may find LibreOffice handles the foreign format a little better than AOO.

Note that regardless of which suite you use, it is better to work exclusively in ODF format and only export to foreign formats when absolutely needed.

[RoryOF]

You are using a proprietary file format; either use .odt - which, I remark, Microsoft claims to support, but does not do so fully - or use .doc, which OO supports better than .docx.

For complex document formatting it is best if both computers use the same program for editing.

[John_Ha]

is it possible for Open Office to corrupt a .docx email attachment?

AOO will not corrupt a .docx file because AOO cannot save files as .docx.

i recieved a .docx email sent from a computer running MS Windows 7 word and it appears that the attachment has corrupted on opening the file in Open Office 4.1.5.
is this a possibility

AOO will not corrupt the file because AOO cannot save files as .docx. However the document may display differently and/or items may be missing. There is a known bug where some table columns are not displayed. Also, if the sender is not using Strict OOXML - few MS users do - then the .docx file may contain items which are not part of the OOXML standard (eg MS Textboxes) which AOO does not recognise.

or has the sender accidentally sent the file already corrupted from his computer.

Possibly yes.

so Open Office must have corrupted the file somehow.

No. AOO is not displaying the file the same as it is displayed on MS Word. That does not mean the file is being corrupted by AOO.

All versions of MS Word can save files as .odt files. Ask the person using MS Word to save the document as a .odt file. If the file is then corrupted you know that Microsoft is causing the problem and you should complain vigorously to Microsoft.

If you do not need to edit the file, then a PDF is the best file format for the other person to send you.

Using recorded changes while exchanging files between MS Word and AOO is known to cause problems if a comment is attached to a string of characters.

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a full explanation, and for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

Upload a small .docx file showing the problem so that it can be analysed. Use the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file.