Comments buggy when saving as a .doc

[MelanieBrooke86]

I saw that someone else asked this, but it was answered as "save as a PDF." I'm hoping for an answer to the actual problem.

I need to be able to send Word documents back and forth with comments, and I've always been able to save them just fine until recently. I had not updated anything (unless Windows updated/ruined something again I didn't know about), but after discovering this issue I updated OpenOffice just in case. Still no luck.

When I save a file as a .doc, the comments do something weird. The text from a comment breaks up into multiple boxes, wiping out whatever was there before. I'm struggling to describe it but I can't seem to upload the screenshot to better show what I mean. (I can't seem to make it save smaller than 128KB.) For instance, the first comment will be broken into three parts. The second part takes over the second comment, the third piece replaces the text from the third comment. Then what WAS my second comment starts off replacing the test from my fourth comment. It's very odd.

Running 4.1.6 on Windows 10.
Any ideas why this is happening? Thank you!

[RoryOF]

Send your documents as .odt format. Microsoft Office from 2007 onwards can open that format; if it is not properly supported, that is due to MS implementing only partial support.

[MelanieBrooke86]

Really? I've seen people have trouble before, but I will find out if they can now, thank you.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

[RoryOF]

Also, YOU are not responsible for Ms Office users' inability to drive the program they use. Tell them to read the instructions.

[Villeroy]

If you want to send someone a document for reading (not for co-editing), PDF is the document format to go. Every smart phone can display PDF properly. PDF is not made for editing. It is the file format to depict anything printable on any electronic device. Most PDF readers have a tool to add comments (analogue to yellow stickies on paper sheets).

[MelanieBrooke86]

Thanks, all. I'm going to go ahead and see if they can read OO, or just send as PDF after all.

[keme]

I have a vague recollection of similar problems. I think it was when you insert a comment for a selected piece of text and use the Word file format. Workaround was to only insert comments on a specific position (don't select text, just put the cursor in a position to best reflect the content you comment on).

Can't find the report now, and I also can't test it at the moment. Try it and see.

[Zizi64]

Thanks, all. I'm going to go ahead and see if they can read OO, or just send as PDF after all.

Or you can try the LibreOffice. It has a littlebit higher compatible with the foreign and obsolete file formats like the binary MS .doc format. And it can save into the Strict version of the newer OfficeOpenXML format of the Microsoft (.docx, .xlsx). (Note: the MSOffice handles the Tranditional (not really standardized) version of the its own OOXML fileformat by default.