Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

can not open word .docx files with openoffice.
I just installed openoffice.

They can mostly be opened with OpenOffice (with possibly some misalignment); start OpenOffice, then use /File /Open and point to the .docx file. You cannot Save in that format using OpenOffice. If you want OpenOffice to open them when you double click on a .docx file, you must set File Associations to tell OpenOffice it is to open that type of file.

Normally this is done by right clicking on a file of the chosen type and selecting "Open With" from the popup. There is often an "Always Open With" setting - if so, this should be used.

Thank you for the reply.
I actually did what you suggested before I asked for help. What happened was the file actually opened but nothing showed up. The file looks empty. If I open it in Word it looks normal.

If you must work with .docx, you can read them using the free Word viewer from the Microsoft site; you could possibly copy from this and paste into OpenOffice if editing is needed. However, if you must work with many .docx files it may be best to obtain MS Word.

@ bbryson2000:
You posted as a "Beginner", but your signature is "openoffice 3.1 on windows 10". Is this correct? OpenOffice.org V 3.1 of 2008 should not be expected to be good at .docx files. You may have a look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML to understand this.
AOO V4.1.3 will surely do better.
Even more emphasis on coping with MS OOXML formats is put by recent versions of LibreOffice. LibO is otherwise still very similar to AOO, and supports completely the same OpenDocument standards writing in native formats (.odt, .ods and so on) and reading from them.
(You may try a PortableApps package of LibO needing no install on the system.)

bbryson2000 wrote:The file looks empty. If I open it in Word it looks normal.

This is almost certainly because the content is inside a Textbox which does not form part of the MS standard and which AOO does not recognise. See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for an explanation.

I've encountered a similar problem. My workaround is to open the .docx file with Word Pad that comes with Windows 10. Word Pad has an option to Save As an .odt file.