Is OpenOffice.org 100% compatible with MS Office?

[Sunshine]

No, it certainly is not! I spent countless hours writing two books in OO. I then had to Paste them into a Word template. Blam! The format went all over the place. I spent hours and hours reformatting. It looked fine. I close the file and reopen it. Blam! It's a mess. I'm talking about having to go over 400 pages at a time. I'm way behind deadline, will have to purchase Word, and spend countless hours reformatting all over again.

I guess I should have done my research before using OO. It has cost me in time and lost income so much more than if I'd just purchased Word in the first place. It should definitely not be promoted as "compatible." It may be so for writing a simple one page letter. Certainly not for other purposes.

[Villeroy]

No, it certainly is not! I spent countless hours writing two books in OO. I then had to Paste them into a Word template. Blam! The format went all over the place.

I'm surprised that MS Word is able to paste anything from a non-Microsoft application. Normally they should simply refuse anything from AOO and find a way to make AOO crash when you try to pullute their divine software with foreign content.
Why is MS Office unable to handle the ODF standard? Because they simply have to do nothing to make Sunshine believe that compatibility is a one-way road.

[Zizi64]

I then had to Paste them into a Word template.

Why did you do that?


For example: Few people buy Adobe Acrobat editing software, but they all are used a free PDF reader software.
The MS Office have freeware Viewer softwares to display/print the "secret code like" binary doc, xls fileformats...

The AOO/LO have not standalone "READER" application, because it is cost free the 'editing software' too.

If you want to work efficiently with Apache OpenOffice or LibreOffice, then you need use the native, STANDARDIZED ODF document formats.
Everybody can download and install (one of) theese opensource office suites (for free), and they can open/read/print/edit your shared documents...

[floris v]

I just tried pasting a document made with OO in Word 2003, while Word does paste some of the formatting correctly, it messes up a lot. I suggest that if you have to exchange between OO and Word, you save in doc format instead of pasting. Still better is to bypass OO entirely if you share files with users of MS Office professionally.

[jrkrideau]

No, it certainly is not! I spent countless hours writing two books in OO. I then had to Paste them into a Word template.
....
I guess I should have done my research before using OO.

Yes you should have. OO has never claimed to be 100% compatible.

Why are you pasting something into a Word template? Cannot you duplicate the template in AOO and just save the document in .doc format?

Alternateively save everything as text and paste into the template?

[Haribol0]

am a wood restoration contractor in Jacksonville, FL. and I use an estimating software for my business which outputs in MS Word format. The program is a little dated, but it suits my purposes just fine. I would like to use open office instead of MS word, because I try to stay away from MS products as much as humanly possible, while still being able to function! I was turned on to open office by a friend about six months ago, and I really like it, but I'm just learning it.

The estimating software I use outputs the estimates and contracts in .rtf format, and it seems to open fine with open office, so comparability seems ok.

I didn't want to start a new thread for this, but once I'm done editing, what is the best format to save files in, so that my customers have an easy time opening them? I have run into problems with some (not so computer savvy) customers not being able to open my estimates when they are saved as .rtf.

The estimates have a logo .bmp and some formatting I don't want to lose. I don't want to convert them to nothing but text files, because I lose that presentation. What would you gurus recommend I do? Should I make these into pdf as mentioned above, and completely avoid compatibility with MS word, or the like? How would I go about it? I don't know everything about this software yet.

[thomasjk]

If you don't want your clients to edit the files then PDF is a good choice. Otherwise .doc for compatibility with folks who have MS Office. Always save the original in native AOO format .odt etc.

[Villeroy]

The estimates have a logo .bmp and some formatting I don't want to lose. I don't want to convert them to nothing but text files, because I lose that presentation. What would you gurus recommend I do? Should I make these into pdf as mentioned above, and completely avoid compatibility with MS word, or the like? How would I go about it? I don't know everything about this software yet.

You don't need OpenOffice for this. Download and install the MS Word Viewer (free as in "free beer") from MS and a virtual PDF printer. Let the viewer print out PDFs.

[Pannetart]

I did an Open Office search (as suggested) and did not get any responses to my inquiry so I thought I'd ask here. I just downloaded OO 4.1.0 as it was suggested I use it to replace MS Office.
I noticed it is compatible with MS Word, Excel, & PowerPoint....but is it not compatible with MS Publisher?
I would like to open several Publisher files but didn't understand the window that opened asking me to choose a "filter selection". I use a Windows based OS.

[RoryOF]

Publisher is not supported in OpenOffice

[keme]

Not even MS Publisher is always compatible with MS Publisher... (I remember some years ago, failing to open older publisher files after upgrading. Had to roll back to the older version of the software.) Anyway, that does not help you much...

Some free file conversion services (such as zamzar) have publisher support, so you can convert your files to a format your software can handle. You will not always the layout preserved, but you get the content extracted (the few times I tried it I got all the content, but layout was "linear").

[JanetHudgins]

I have been fighting with Office 2016's Word and just want to get rid of it. I'm happy to find a legitimate competitor as monopolies tend to make products less than perfect. But, I'm a writer, concerned that journals and publishers will not be able to accept OpenOffice and I won't be able to convert it to MS Word to accommodate them. Is there a solution already and what is the experience of other writers?

Appreciate your help.

Janet

[Villeroy]

Non-US publishers?

[RoryOF]

There will be differences; it is best to work in .odt (Writer's native format) and Save as in .doc format only when finished, but there will be differences. You could try using an external conversion facility, such at that offered by
http://www.zamzar.com
to convert the odt to .doc - this may be more accurate. Perhaps your publisher can work from a PDF file, and you can generate that by /File /Export as PDF.

Sometimes publishers run a doc file through filters to extract only the text without formatting, then reformat to suit their equipment.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for an extensive discussion, and for the reasons why you should always work in and save files as .odt. It includes this diagram which answers the question.

Remember that all versions of MS Word later than 2007 can both read and write .odt files.

Different capabilities in Writer and its .odt files compared with MS Word and its .doc, .docx (and .rtf) files.
Note that MS Word, while capable of supporting some of the function stored in a .odt file chooses not to implement that function.
MS Word 6.0/95 files cannot store Draw objects.

[esperantisto]

…journals and publishers will not be able to accept OpenOffice…

In fact, publishers don’t need office suit files anyway because they use special dedicated formats in their processes. Office suit files are regarded as an inevitable evil and policies in their regard may vary. You have to ask particular publishers, not this forum.

[esperantisto]

Remember that all versions of MS Word later than 2007 can both read and write .odt files.

In my practice, MS Word 2010 always reports errors and always presents a certain extend of formatting loss/distortion. It is much better to export files to DOC from AOO.

[John_Ha]

In my practice, MS Word 2010 always reports errors and always presents a certain extend of formatting loss/distortion. It is much better to export files to DOC from AOO.

The problem does not lie with the .odt files so complain vigorously to Microsoft.

See Microsoft's claim at Use Word to open or save a document in the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format where Microsoft lists what MS Word supports.

Read the Tutorial for other factors like different or missing fonts, headers and footers methodology etc.

[bobbypergs]

I think that Microsoft tends to sabotage ODT files somewhat, due to the free nature of open office.

It would make sense, at least, in the strictest sense that this would be the case. (I have never been able to get a 1:1 conversion back to either program. I was coming here hoping that there might be some insight, but most of the tips in here I've already tried.)

[Villeroy]

Have you ever tested how far MS Office supports foreign file formats? If you have to edit MS documents, you need MS software. Simple as that.

[ankit3302]

OpenOffice.org is compatible with MS office but only upto some extent not 100%. If you want to full access to MS Office, you have to buy it. But generally people are not able to afford it , so they use openoffice which is very good to use.

[RoryOF]

Another reason to use Open- or Libre-Office is that MS Office does not run (without considerable trickery) on platforms other than Windows.

[esperantisto]

MS Office does not run (without considerable trickery) on platforms other than Windows.

Well, there is a native version of MS Office for Mac OS actually. And running under Linux is no big problem (although no piece of cake either).

[tlc.sue]

Not sure this is a reply - more a continuation. I deleted all my Open Office after it misbehaving and causing probs with docs in general. I am now finding some folders in my database of documents for one year - 2018 cannot be retrieved. Do I have to reload open office to raise these docs saved as open office on my Mac pro 2009 OS 10.12.6

I am wanting to revive my biz thinking I still have my docs. Even a latest CV has gone. Hope someone cn help before I download a prog my old mac has little room for unless its working with ease.

[RoryOF]

OpenOffice should open any doc/odt, xls/ods files on your computer.

[robleyd]

some folders in my database of documents for one year - 2018 cannot be retrieved.

Can you explain what you mean by this? Can you not find them with whatever File Manger Mac OSX provides - Finder??

If you have removed OpenOffice then of course you won't be able to open those documents, unless you install another application that can handle Open Document Format files - the type of format used by Apache OpenOffice.