[Solved] MS Office Compatibility

[Applesauce]

Hi everyone I am very interested in trying OpenOffice and before I get started I just wanted to make sure of a few things. I know OpenOffice can open MS Office files but can MS Office do the same for OpenOffice files? I mainly want to know this because I don't have access to MS Office and for things like school essays or job resumes I want people who have MS Office to be able to open my documents that I have written with OpenOffice. Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[TheGurkha]

It is always safer to work in the native OOo formats (.odt and .ods etc) and then use Save As to save a copy in .doc or .xls format if you need to distribute it in MS Office formats. But always then go back to the native OOo version to continue working. If the people you are sending to do not need to edit the files then it is best to send them a PDF as then no matter what office suite they use it will be possible for them to read and print the files.

You can use File > Save As and select 'Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP' from the 'Save as type' dropdown menu. Make sure the 'Automatic file name extension' option is checked to save as .doc, which MS Word can open.