[Solved] What document type should I use?

[nothernoob]

Hello. I have about as basic a question as they come I guess. I have looked about and found nothing on this. Not saying there ain't such, just that I hadn't found it.
I am trying to write an article with just text for now though in time it will include images.

I have switched over from Microsoft Office to Open Office 341. In MS/O I saved my work onto 97-2003 files. Now I started saving onto ODT. But then I got some sort of can't save message and something about "rich text" documents and wound up saving in ODtext. Now I have about 3 or 4 different versions of each file and I am swamped & confused.

Obviously I am woefully ignorant of this issue. I really have no knowledge of these different file types and their applications. It simply was never an issue before. Now I don't know want to do but want to stream line this to one type so I can get on to the article. That is complicated enough without this duplication of files.
HELP! (pleeze? )

[FJCC]

You should save documents in the "ODF Text Document (.odt)" format. This is the native format of OpenOffice. The MS Office formats for saving documents supported by OpenOffice carry a varying risk of corrupting your formatting. The filters were reverse engineered and are imperfect. If you don't need to share your document with others who have to edit it, then you should be all set. You can export you document as a PDF file if you want to send it to others to read and don't want to worry about their ability to handle an odt document. Recent versions of MS Office claim to support the odt format, but I don't know how well they do it.

[RoryOF]

In /File /Save As make sure "automatic file name extension" is checked. If you don't do this,OpenOffice will gripe about being unable to save.

[nothernoob]

Thanks! I get the info re save as odt file.
Let me make sure I have this right. For example, I have three versions of one page. In order each file is tagged .doc, .docx, & ODT.odt. I can delete the first two and just keep the ODT.odt. Right?

"automatic file name extension" is checked.

Now. About that handling question. I need to be sure about that too because this article (file pages) will need to be handled by others. I am transliterating into English an article a Serb friend wrote in Russian. He will then review and need to edit content for accuracy for me to then improve in English. The finished product will then be made available to publishers. So, from my odt file, I convert it to pdf and then my friend can edit as he needs? (I am no great wizard on pdf files either except in cursing them). For some reason, I always have found pdf files to be burdensome, slow loading, hard to manage and generally hate them all around and often thought they were only created to discourage people from trying to read the content. But, if they really work for others, I'm willing to learn.
Thanks again.
Will all this work or should I go back to wrassling with MSword- bloated, over-complicated, and annoying but, pretty much universally manageable? Or maybe, convert my finished draft into MSword to pass along?

[RoryOF]

A PDF file is intended to be uneditable, so it is not a good format to use if editing is required. See it as the digital equivalent of a printed book. If you are finding PDF files slow to load etc, then you are probably doing something wrong (using the wrong application). A PDF file is normally opened using Adobe Reader, which is installed on most Windows computers by default; there are other PDF reader applications, but initially install/reinstall Adobe Reader.

Which file format you use depends on what program your Serb friend uses. If he has OpenOffice, then both use .odt. If he has only MS Word, then you ought use .doc.

[nothernoob]

Ok. Thanks Rory. I'll find out what he uses. I only know he never had any problem with my Word files. Assuming he's not using OpenOffice, I think I may work in odt then convert it to the .doc to send.

I appreciate the help and patience for my ignorance. I'm just an old geezer who remembers when an abacus was the closest thing there was to a computer and it's a wonder I can manage around this thing at all! Now, I'm gonna go weed out my file folder so I can spend more time working on those files!

[RoryOF]

Working yourself in .odt and saving out to .doc (remember to resave to .odt afterwards) is the best course if your friend hasn't got OpenOffice. The really important thing is to set "Automatic file name extension" in /File /Save As. Once set, OpenOffice will remember it, but if not set, there is no easy way to distinguish between file types, which is why the "unable to write to FileX" message crops up.

[Villeroy]

A word file comes in as email attachment.
You open the attachment. Mail attachments are read-only since they are not saved anywhere on your disk.
File>Save as... type .odt on your disk.
Edit your odt.
File>Send>Email as Microsoft Word

This way you keep track of the unmodified incoming and outgoing docs in your mail box and your own editable ODF documents on your disk.

[nothernoob]

My "Automatic file name extension" is checked on.

I got you on the sending file types. Thanks very much to all.


Initial post edited to 'solved.'