Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

have just received attachment to e mail with a .docx
Have downloaded but i can't open it
Help!

You have Saved it to the local hard drive? Try AbiWord, which you may have to google for and install. Recently I have found some incoming docx files won't open with OpenOffice, but will with AbiWord.

You don't mention how you tried to open it and what happened. Try the following.

In your email client, click on the attachment and select Save As, or Save attachment or whatever similar option your email client offers. Note where you save it; then open Writer and select File | Open and navigate to where you saved the file and select it.

Or: use the online conversion of http://www.zamzar.com to convert to .odt format.

Thanks, realised that I could use "Save As" & give new name.
It worked, but thanks to all

Save As might not change the format sufficiently to permit OpenOffice open the document; the Save As will depend on the filters built in to the email client.

OK, take your point, but I use Thunderbird & it did work.
But I thought in the past when I have received documents with Microsoft extentions that i could change to .odt, am I mistaken?

Changing an extension does not change the internal structure of a document, which the extension is supposed to indicate. It is like dressing a donkey in striped pyjamas - it doesn't turn him into a zebra - he remains a donkey; so does your file with whatever extension you put on it - it remains unchanged internally.

I wouldn't expect an email client to be able to change a document's format; Save As is merely to let you save the document, optionally with a different file name. Changing the file extension is not a good idea.

You'll notice that when you choose the Save As option in Thunderbird, the original file name is offered as the default name to save as; in Linux at least the file name (not extension) is highlighted to allow changing it.

Is all I can say is that I can now open the document on my "C" drive, I can add notes/delete parts from it. I can insert Comments/Title
What more can I want?

Probably the key was that you Saved the document to the local hard drive. OpenOffice determines the type of document from internal evidence; many other programs use the extension to do so.

RoryOF wrote:Probably the key was that you Saved the document to the local hard drive.

I agree. I don't see how changing the file name could have fixed anything. The attachment may have been sent with the wrong content type, causing Thunderbird to mishandle the attachment. There's just not enough information about the problem to pin down the cause.

Unexpected handling of certain attachments