Importing document changes from Writer to Word or Pages

[martymouse]

hi all,

sorry if this query has come up before, it prob has but i've failed to find it coz i don't know how to search for it.

i'm a translator and editor/proofreader, and i prefer to use open office for my work. but people often send me documents from word or pages. when i correct them in writer the formatting is sometimes disrupted. as we know. so i was wondering if there is a way for me to use track changes in writer, but then have the client import those changes into the .docx file on their system, using ms word, rather than using the file i entered the changes into in writer. some work-around like this would save me having to puchase new software and also from the headache of having to do my work in multiple programs.

mayb this is obvious, but alas i also have no ms word to test it on...

thx for any help/confirmation.

[Villeroy]

OpenOffice is free and so is LibreOffice. The latter is more actively developed and more compatible with MS Office.
You can ask clients if they want to install one of the two ODF suites.
You may install LibreOffice and see how far you get with that.
You may install some other product such as Softmaker Office.
But almost certainly you need to install MS Word anyway.

The two ODF suites are not intended to be alternative editors for proprietary file formats. Instead they introduced a non-proprietary file format which is not that complicated and free to use by all means. Of course, Open/LibreOffice provides some level of compatibility so we can import foreign document formats and continue working in ODF. Perfect PDF export ensures that our documents look the same on any device. When it comes to co-eding complex documents, you definitively need to use the same software.

[keme]

In all examples I have seen (rather many over the years), change tracking is maintained when you alternate between MS Word and OO Writer. Upon testing right now, it looks like LO does the same. This works with doc, docx and odt (tried them all, transitioning back and forth).

Pages is a different beast. Its native file format is not handled by Word or Writer. Pages can export to Word doc format, but I have never seen any examples where change tracking is successfully maintained with this export, even when the user claims that change tracking was enabled in Pages. I have not tested Pages myself.

Also I cannot recall any exports to ODF formats from iWorks apps, so I have no advice in that area.