Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I decided to use OpenOffice in place of MS Office. I am having a problem getting it to open MS Office word docs and visa versa. I have just put together a resume using OO writer. When I sent it to someone using MS Office they were unable to open the document. Is there a trick to saving it in order for MS Office to be able to open the document?
Thanks,
holly4fairs

Did you save in .doc format using Save As or native OOo format? If you saved it in native OOo format then you need to do a Save As and select 97/2000/XP. If your using Office 2007 then OOo cannot save in the .docx formats yet.

You need to save it as a doc (Word 97 or above probably). The default is the open document format odt - you should ask your mate why his MS stuff does not support this format yet. MS Office should support this superior format by now.

SInce the recipient probably does not need to edit the document you could also send it as a PDF file. That way you can be sure that a) They can open it and b) it will look like you want it to llok, there's not chance of the layout getting messed up.

Please do not use all caps in your subject lines. Many people find it offensive; it reads as though you're shouting. (Try reading A Prayer for Owen Meany sometime. I got through it just fine, but some readers couldn't tolerate it, even though the only parts written in all caps are Owen's dialog.)

holly4fairs wrote:I am having a problem getting it to open MS Office word docs and visa versa.

This appears to be a different question than the one you ended with, the one that people have answered so far. What kind of problem are you having getting it to open Word files, specifically?

You might want to have a look at the link in my sig line to the PDF user guides. In there is the Migration Guide, which might help answer some of your questions about what is compatible and what differences you might see between OpenOffice and MS Office.