Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365 Word

Discuss the word processor
Post Reply
JGusewelle
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu May 27, 2021 10:31 pm

Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365 Word

Post by JGusewelle »

I have OpenOffice 4.1.3 installed on my Windows laptop. Using Writer, I create a document that I save out as an OpenOffice.org XML 1.0 Text Document (*.sxw) file. I have a process that runs on a Linux server that has OpenOffice 4.1.3 installed. The process uses the OpenOffice soffice command-line utility to run a macro to save the *.sxw file as a *.doc file, using the Save As "Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (*.doc). The macro is using the FilterName "MS Word 97". Everything has been working great for years until one of the last Office 365 updates that happened in April of 2021. Now I run into problems when opening the *.doc file in Word. Sometimes the first page is blank, sometimes the whole document is blank. What seems to fix it is if I switch to the Word 2003 compatibility mode from within Word. Just curious if anyone else has ran into any problems like this. Thanks!
OpenOffice 4.1.3
Window / Linux
User avatar
RusselB
Moderator
Posts: 6646
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2014 7:31 am
Location: Sarnia, ON

Re: Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365

Post by RusselB »

Welcome to the Forums.
First question that comes to me, is: Why are you saving to a .sxw file, then converting to a .doc?
To my knowledge, though I haven't use the command line options much, you should be able to just save it as a .doc file
Even if you couldn't, for compatibility, saving it as a .odt file first would be the general recommendation.
That said, can you provide sample files, namely a .sxw and a .doc that has been converted using your macro.
With these files, we can do our own conversion from the .sxw and compare our results to the .doc that you supply and see what, if any, differences there are.
Since this has just started recently, it sounds like a change to M$Word that breaks the compatibility. Can't say I'm surprised as M$ is well known for not maintaining compatibility even between versions of it's own software.
OpenOffice 4.1.7, LibreOffice 7.0.1.2 on Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate & Windows 10 Home (2004)
If you believe your problem has been resolved, please go to your first post in this topic, click the Edit button and add [Solved] to the beginning of the Subject line.
JGusewelle
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu May 27, 2021 10:31 pm

Re: Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365

Post by JGusewelle »

Thanks RusselB! I agree this is more than likely a M$Word update problem. We have a process that requires the source file to start as an *.sxw and result into a *.doc. Unfortunately at this time I'm not able to change that. We've looked at the *.odt option, but that change would be a large effort .. and I've found some inconsistencies between OpenOffice and Word saving as ODT. The internal file structures vary slightly .. just enough to be problematic to our process. So, at this point in time, I'm really needing to stay with using soffice to convert the *.sxw to a *.doc. The resulting *.doc file opens fine with OpenOffice, but will also need to be opened with Word. That's where the new problem surfaced last month. I'll attach 2 files. One is Before.sxw that has a simple pic and text. The second is named After.doc and was converted to a doc format from the soffice command utility as mentioned in previous post. I believe the After.doc file can be opened and the layout displays correctly in Word, as long as the Word version is prior to a recent release of Word. I personally have Office 365 Word version 2104 (Build 13929.20386) that was released on May 18, 2021 and I can see the problem. When I open the file, the page is blank. The After.doc file was able to be opened with versions prior to the April, 2021 releases (I previously had a Word version 2008 and the file opened fine).

Well shoot .. I just tried to upload a sample *.sxw file, but received a message "The extension sxw is not allowed". This is my first set of posts on this forum, and I don't want to violate any rules. I will attach the After.doc file. The Before.sxw file contained a jpeg and a line of text. You should see something similar in the After.doc file.

I'm assuming you could test the same scenario out by creating an sxw formatted file that contains a jpeg and a line of text. Save it. Then Save-As and select Save as type "Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (*.doc)". Then attempt to open in MS Word. As long as the version of Word is prior to the April 2021 release, chances are it will open fine. But a newer release of Office 365 Word after April 2021 will probably display a blank page until a couple things happen. You can switch to Word 2003 compatibility mode. Actually, even toggling the Show/Hide paragraph markers results in the pic and text being displayed.
Attachments
After.doc
This is the file we ended with after running the soffice utility using a macro to save the source sxw to a doc format.
(21 KiB) Downloaded 107 times
OpenOffice 4.1.3
Window / Linux
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365

Post by John_Ha »

JGusewelle wrote: I've found some inconsistencies between OpenOffice and Word saving as ODT. The internal file structures vary slightly .. just enough to be problematic to our process.
See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a description of differences and for why you should always work in, and save Writer files as .odt, Calc files as .ods, Impress files as .odp etc.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
JGusewelle
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu May 27, 2021 10:31 pm

Re: Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365

Post by JGusewelle »

Thanks John_Ha! Good read and explains a lot. Thanks!
OpenOffice 4.1.3
Window / Linux
User avatar
Zizi64
Volunteer
Posts: 11352
Joined: Wed May 26, 2010 7:55 am
Location: Budapest, Hungary

Re: Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365

Post by Zizi64 »

This is the file we ended with after running the soffice utility using a macro to save the source sxw to a doc format.
Why you convert an important document from a never standardized, and obsolote file format (.sxw, what was the native file format of the OpenOffice in the past) to a never standardized, obsolete and moreover foreign (binary .doc) file format?

Use the modern, intrernational standard and native ODF file formats of the Open/LibreOffice. (The LibreOffice can save into the OOXML file formats too.)
Tibor Kovacs, Hungary; LO7.5.8 /Win7-10 x64Prof.
PortableApps/winPenPack: LO3.3.0-7.6.2;AOO4.1.14
Please, edit the initial post in the topic: add the word [Solved] at the beginning of the subject line - if your problem has been solved.
JGusewelle
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu May 27, 2021 10:31 pm

Re: Writer saved doc files no longer open in new Office 365

Post by JGusewelle »

That's a fair question, Zizi64. The process I'm referring to has been running for 13-14 years. We have plans to overhaul it using more up-to-date software and technology, but it will be a fairly large effort. In the mean time, we are trying to support the legacy process as best as we can.
OpenOffice 4.1.3
Window / Linux
Post Reply