Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hi guys, and girls:

I am trying to back up a fair number of text files to a Lexar thumb drive, so I can retrieve them later if I have a problem with my internal hard drive.

(AOO 4.1.5 Windows 10)

When I save these files on my internal hard drive they are saved as .odt which is fine.

When I try to back them up externally by going to: 'file' / 'export' / a window appears asking for the file name, but seemingly only offers to save it on the external drive as PDF.

I would prefer to store it on the thumb drive as a .odt file since I cannot edit in PDF. So my question is double-barreled:

A) Can I save it on the thumb drive as .odt? If I can, how do I do that? Or, .........

B) If I can only save it there as PDF, how can I convert it back to .odt when I want to bring it back into AOO?

Many many thanks for help with this.

Rodney.
[My laptop has been giving me all kinds of problems. I am afraid the next thing it may do is lose all my stuff.]

There are many unexplained failures of files worked directly to USB sticks, so we do not recommend hat. Better, outside of OO, to copy the files from the hard disk to the USB stick. Copy back to the hard disk if editing is needed.

PDF files are designed to be an output format. It is difficult - in the case of spreadsheets effectively impossible - to convert back to OpenOffice files. One can sometimes cut the data from the PDF and Paste into OO, but reformatting may be needed. Another method is to OCR the PDF and insert the generated file into OO (again, reformatting)

If using USB devices, ensure that you observe the operating system's USB removal protocols.

Thank you Rory. I see you must be the other side of the international date line!

When I try to back them up externally by going to: 'file' / 'export' /

That option is to export a document in a different format (PDF or XHTML), not to save it in a different place. If you have a number of documents you want to move to an external device, use an appropriate tool; Windows has a file manager (Windows Explorer? File Explorer?) which is designed to do file management. Apache OpenOffice isn't designed for file management.