Formatting goes wild every time I reopen document

[Kolmer]

Hello,

I have used Open Office for awhile now on my Acer Laptop and I have been very pleased.

I now have a Mac Book Pro and I downloaded Apache 4 ( I am running Mac OSX 10.9.1)

Whenever I opened a document from my WIN Apache the formatting was all offset and the bullets turned into little boxes etc. So I corrected all the formatting and saved. The next time I opened it up it was all out of whack in the same fashion as before.

So I downloaded some resume templates online and they look great, but when I make changes and reopen the file: formatting boxes are gone and text just lines up on the left as if I used Note Pad to write the file from scratch. AND the bullets are all "Wonky"

The templates I used were saved in the .odt file extension but I am attempting to save into a .doc format or even a .rtf so that potential employers will be able to view the resume; and so it will appear in potential searches by employers. I am under the impression large companies do not use Apache software but rely mainly on Microsoft products.

HELP ! Please !

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Better avoid rtf, it support is very poor in AOO. The .doc format is better but still reverse engineered import/export filters and under Mac, the .doc is basically a bit different than on Windows.

Can't you send PDF instead?

Of course large companies use MS Office more than Apache OpenOffice.

[Kolmer]

Thank You for your fast reply Hagar.

Yes a PDF would be great to send via email, but for the resume to be searchable it must be in a word document format.
Perhaps I could find a resume template in a .doc format and try that ?

Sorry, I just not thought of that. (I am still waking up and have not had my coffee.)

Thanks Again!
Kolmer

[acknak]

Always save your work as ODF (.odt for text documents). You can export a copy to some other format as needed (File > Save As).

If your concern is with making the information available, you can skip any special formatting; the text is going to be extracted and the formatting will be thrown out, right? Keep it as simple as possible. Simple formatting should export correctly to .doc or .rtf. You should check the exported document by opening it in MS Word (if you can), or you can try loading it on one of the online document sites (Google docs, Zamzar, more?).

If your concern is with the formatting (you know a person will look at it), send a printed copy or a pdf unless they specifically ask for a Word document.

[Kolmer]

The companies I am applying for are specifically asking for a WORD document.

I have been working in the .odf format and when finished editing I save into DOC.
The next time the file is opened strange things start to happen.

bullets always come up with this strange sort of box (see image.) I go in and change them all back to bullets and then next time I open the doc then they are all boxes again.

This is now even happening when I start with a word .doc

I am contemplating buying WORD if I can't figure out why this is happening in the next 5 hours. I have already spent over a week on this and I am loosing my nerve.

[Kolmer]

I just saved and when I reopened the document it was blank other than the header. I am not sure this is working out... too bad too because I really liked this software on PC.

[Hagar Delest]

There are some problems with .doc on Mac. See for example: [Solved] Bullet Point Characters Incorrect.