[Solved] All of my Microsoft files have been reformatted!

[Maxami]

I recently bought a laptop with OpenOffice pre-installed. When I plugged my memory stick into it, it automatically converted all of my Microsoft Office files into Open Office format. I can't seem to figure out how to convert them all back. Is this normal ops for this software? How to I recover my files? I do not choose to use Open Office till I have learned much more about it.

Thanks

[RPG]

Hello

I think it is not normal. It happens only when you start a wizard. When you started the wizard it convert MSO files to OOo files. But there is made a new one and the old one is not changed. It happens in that way for me some years ago when I use that tool.

Romke

[Hagar Delest]

When I plugged my memory stick into it, it automatically converted all of my Microsoft Office files into Open Office format.

What do you mean exactly? Have your .doc files been replaced by .odt files? Or is it a formatting problem after having saved the files with OOo?

[TheGurkha]

I suspect that what has happened is just the OS is showing the icons for those files as OOo icons, because on that machine OOo is the default program associated with those file types.

Put your memory stick in a PC with only MS Office on it and I would expect you to see the old MS office icons. Nothing has been 'converted'.

[RoryOF]

It is possible that the files have not in fact been reformatted, simply displayed with new formatting due to being opened with Openoffice. Unless they have been saved afresh, the underlying file is still the same. Such apparent reformatting occurs for two reasons: firstly because on a new computer almost certainly there will not be the exact fonts available used in the original files; OOo tries to do its best, but different fonts have different parameters for character spacing and interline spacing, so the text appears to change position. This usually shows up as lines wrapping differently, and a different number of lines per page, so a different page count in the document. These changes are not transferred back into the original file, unless you save the file from openOffice.

Secondly, because OOo is not Word, some structures, particularly tables, but there are others, are misinterpreted between the one word processor and the other. Again, unless you save the file from OOo these changes are display changes only.

So most probably there is no need to panic, as the original files may well be unchanged and will show up unchanged on a Word installation similar to that on which they were generated.

[Bill]

I suspect that what has happened is just the OS is showing the icons for those files as OOo icons, because on that machine OOo is the default program associated with those file types.

Put your memory stick in a PC with only MS Office on it and I would expect you to see the old MS office icons. Nothing has been 'converted'.

I agree. A file format can have different "file types". Changing the default program used to open the file format can change the "file type" and will change the icon to match the default program, but the file format itself isn't changed.

[Hagar Delest]

Ah, indeed, had forgotten about that! You should also make the Explorer show the file extension, this is a security hint also, see How to NOT hide extensions in Windows.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[Maxami]

I will give it try. Thank you, all.

If it solves the prob, I will post so.

[Maxami]

Ok, so the only way I could recover my docs was to remove Open Office from my computer. Not sure why it was so stubborn about being in charge of all my docs, but removing it was the only solution that worked. I then had to do a Microsoft Office repair, to fix Word and Excel, after removing Open Office. They must have been sharing some bits and bytes. Thanks for the assistance.

Maxami

[evwool]

That's odd. I run both MS Office 2000 and Open Office 3.1.1 on my MS XP PC and OO has behaved impeccably, never snatching files which are in another format. However, MS Office was already on my PC when I installed Office - don't know if that makes a difference, or if OO 3.2 is more forceful.
Usually if a program grabs a file, all you have to do is right click on the file, and choose Open With. Then, even if the program you need is listed, go to Choose Program and then tick the box which says Always Use This Program. (If Open With doesn't appear, press Shift when you right click.)
I wonder if what is actually happening is that Max has only Open Office on his laptop so that he edits his files in Open Office and then takes them to another PC which only has MS Word on it (eg at college)