How do I use Open Office to open Mac files?

[cyanocitta]

Welcome beginner. What is your question or comment?
Please try to briefly and clearly tell us: What you want, What you tried, and What happened.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My computer runs Windows XP.
What I want to be able to do is open up Mac-formatted files using Open Office. Someone emails me a Word/Pages/etc. document made on a Mac, I'd like to be able to open it.

I tried using Open Office to do this but it is not working. I'm not sure whether it just doesn't have that capability or whether I'm doing it wrong or what.

What happens is that no matter what Filter I use in Open Office, it just produces gobbledygook. I tried searching the forums and the help documentation for information on this but I am still confused. Does Open Office just not do cross-platform conversion? Am I doing it wrong? Is there an extension for this I've been unable to find?

Thank you!

[acknak]

OpenOffice will open more types of files than almost any other software around, but it doesn't open everything--not by a long shot.

Most notable for you, it doesn't (yet) handle MS Office 2007 files, and I've not heard that it supports Apple's Pages file format either, although I don't know for sure what format Pages uses; as far as I know it's another proprietary format that other software can't read.

OOo 3 (due out in a few weeks) will be able to open MSO 2007 files; you'll probably need either a copy of Pages, or ask people to send you the files in a compatible format such as .doc or RTF, which can be opened by OOo.

[cyanocitta]

OpenOffice will open more types of files than almost any other software around, but it doesn't open everything--not by a long shot.
Most notable for you, it doesn't (yet) handle MS Office 2007 files, and I've not heard that it supports Apple's Pages file format either

That was about what I figured; just checking in case I had missed something completely obvious. Thank you!