Opening Microsoft Files from the cloud on OpenOffice

[jibberishballr]

Hi All,

Quick question on how to use openoffice and Microsoft suite together. I use Microsoft suite for work and the companies' Microsoft cloud storage to store all of my files online. I'd like to work on these online-saved-files on my desktop using OpenOffice. Is this possible and if so how do I go about it?

Thanks in advance.

[Villeroy]

A file is a file and a program is a program. What exactly is the problem? You open an office document with this program exactly like you would open some picture with a painting program or some movie file with a player. Running Linux as operating system this is not a problem at all. Some drive or network protocol provides directories with files, the computer provides programs to open files and no company patronising me about which program to use with which file.

OK, OpenOffice on Windows is a far cry from the XP era. It certainly helps if you can map the external files to a drive letter. Or replace OpenOffice with LibreOffice which has a special dialog to open remote files.

[Hagar Delest]

Note that using AOO to work with MS Office files in .doc (or .docx if you go LibreOffice) is not a good idea. Due to vendor lock-in policy, you may experience glitches with such external format.
If you want to work with AOO/LO, then use their native format (ODF).

[jibberishballr]

Let me help clarify the problem better. I understand how files work and that I can open files with a program.

Is it possible to use the cloud version of PPT and open a file location (that is in the cloud) within OpenOffice's desktop app? I understand that I can download the file, work on it in the AOO desktop app, then reupload it to the prover file server, but wanted to see if there was a way to use the network address (where the files are stored online) to open and edit in AOO on the desktop. Maybe it's understanding how to find the network address and open it in the desktop app?

Does that make sense?

[Villeroy]

Why don't you simply try? Installing Libre/OpenOffice is way faster than spreading speculative theories on a forum. IMHO, OpenOffice is the worst application to open Powerpoints on a cloud server. The file format is tailored around Powerpoint exclusively and the application is completely out of time. Even if you refuse to install MS Office, there are office applications better than OpenOffice.
https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/li ... penoffice/

[jibberishballr]

That's fair. Not speculating on theories, just wanting to know if I can do what I'm trying to do with AOO. Sounds like I can't so i'll try Libre.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a discussion of the problem, a description of differences and for why you should always work in, and save Writer files as .odt, Calc files as .ods, Impress files as .odp etc.

[Villeroy]

That's fair. Not speculating on theories, just wanting to know if I can do what I'm trying to do with AOO. Sounds like I can't so i'll try Libre.

Nobody knows. Nobody ever wrote any kind of report or tutorial on OO dealing with documents on MS servers. From rather unspecific requests on this forum I could not learn anything quotable. The only cloud computing I ever tried is based on synchronized folders where you add, remove and edit any kind of file on your own disk while some client software tries to synchronize the corresponding server files. The client does not distinguish between documents, movies, archives nor does the server. A file is just a file. Microsoft seems to handle this differently (who knows how exactly?) which is why I would never ever store anything on their servers.

[Mr.Dandy]

Did you use OneDrive for that?

[Villeroy]

https://twitter.com/frank_rieger/status ... 3917957121

What can we tell about the network, the files, the Word application? Absolutely nothing.