[Solved] Microsoft Office 365 prevents saving ODT files

[steven lockwood]

I was recently obliged to take out a temporary free subscription to Office 365 in order to access some essential legal documents. Now when I write a new text document in Open Office, Microsoft hijacks the process and insists on saving it as a Microsoft Office 365 document even though I try to save it as ODT. I am very happy with Open Office and don't want anything to do with Microsoft if I can help it. How do I resolve this please? Please bear in mind when/if replying that I am technologically semi-literate at best.

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

The .doc file association is set to MS Office by default.
Reset the file association: [Tutorial] Setting the default program to open files.

Beware that compatibility with .doc is not perfect and if you need to save in .doc, it may be a problem (LibreOffice does better but not perfect either). AOO cannot save in .docx by the way. The .doc/.docx file format has not been designed to be compatible with anything else than MS Office. If you are asked to provide legal documents, it should be PDF. If the .docx format is a requirement, then it may be (sadly) something to put up with and buy MS Office. Or to be discussed with the ones requiring such documents.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the *EDIT button if your issue has been fixed.

[keme]

Note that the Microsoft 365 "hijack" does not influence the way OpenOffice saves the document. It just replaces the OpenOffice apps with Microsoft's corresponding apps in the "default handler" mechanism, also as a handler for ODF type files. This makes document icons change to Microsoft icons. The files are still ODF type files, unless you have chosen to alter the default save format within OpenOffice yourself.

To escape the hijack situation, go into system settings (the cogwheel on the start menu) and select apps, then default apps. Use the Select default by app link and then locate your OpenOffice apps and set them back as the default handlers. File icons should revert to the familiar appearances.

I recommend that you make this change immediately to avoid data loss. Microsoft apps are known to alter stored files even when you just open and close (no edit or other action that might logically trigger save). Open/preview in Microsoft app may happen by accident when the Microsoft app is the default handler. Even merely showing an ODF file in the file explorer preview may alter the modified date, indicating "foul play". In certain condtions, the entire content appears to be lost, resetting file size to "zero bytes". (It is usually recoverable, though.)

[steven lockwood]

Thanks both of you. You've solved my problem and reassured me.