Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I am a single father in a custody matter and I am trying to use open office to open the provided forms so I can fill them out print and then submit to the court. The problem is that open office doesn't seem to like them. It doesn't properly display the forms and allow me to fill them out properly. MS office does perfectly but not open office. I really would like to use open office for this as I am much more comfortable with open office and I prefer it. Can anyone please help me to be able to open these files more properly?

Hi and welcome to the forum!

LibreOffice is told to have better compatibility with MS Office format, you can try it.
Else, ask someone that has MS Office to fill it in. Or ask if the form can be provided as a PDF form that can be filled in with a PDF reader.

Thank you for this information. I am downloading it now to try it

Thanks to report if it is better or not.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the *EDIT button if your issue has been fixed.

Sorry that program turns out to be acting the same way with same issues. Could still use help

Your immediate problem is to get your forms filled, which doubtless originate in MS Word. Go to your local library and use a publicly accessible machine to fill the forms.

I am aware of other options that I do use. What i am wanting to know is if there is a way to do it using open office

Without access to the original form(s) that are causing the problem, so that we can see just what the problem is, there's little to no chance of us being able to determine if OpenOffice or LibreOffice can handle those forms.
Some legal forms can only be filled out on the computer on which they were opened. I found this out when applying for my passport. Even though the forms were in PDF format, they were done in a manner where I couldn't open/download the form at the library, then send the form to a flash drive, in order to open it from the flash drive when I got home. The PDF file, once copied to the flash drive, became uneditable.
I don't know that you are running into the same (or similar) problem, but just a guess based on the fact that you are dealing with legal forms...based on your statement regarding custody matter.

pculp2 wrote:What i am wanting to know is if there is a way to do it using open office

No.
Because MS Office uses proprietary formats, not documented (or not well) to prevent the interoperability with other applications like AOO.
This is done by design so that users get MS Office.

Ok thank you for explaining that for me. Now I better understand why its doing that and thaqn open office can't properly display it.

the man issue was that in the boxes where I put the people involved and contact information it cuts off the bottom of the box, no words missing just the line but judges are picky. I guess they get to deal with it or I will do the main page which seems to be the issue at public location where they have office or find my office key lol. Thank you