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Are Open Office documents compatible with Microsoft Office, and vice versa? We explain
Q Given that almost everyone uses Word, Powerpoint and Excel
to create and share documents, would using Open Office cut people off from the
rest of the world, or do documents translate themselves?
John Wallinger
A We are pleased to say that this situation is a lot better than it used to be. Open Office can open documents from all versions of Microsoft Office and save files in the Microsoft formats.
Microsoft Office 2007 can open files from Open Office as long as you have Service Pack 2 for Office installed. This should be offered through Windows Update but it can be found at the Microsoft website if not.
Office 2003 cannot open Open Office documents without a special add-on. Unfortunately the official add-on for Microsoft Office to open Open Office documents is no longer available free of charge.
Instead you can download an alternative. Rather than add Open Office formats to the Open window, there are options available for opening and saving with the ODF format added to the File menu.
Baffled by jargon? See our free online Jargon Buster.
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Open Office Vs Word
I love the idea of Open Office, unfortunately the practice can be a bit rocky. I have spent days trying to work out the page numbering system. Fine if you just want to start from the first page - but if you need to start after a title page, contents, etc., you enter a deep, dark swamp from which there seems no return... If you don't believe me, go to the Open Office forum and type in 'page numbering'. I once tried over nearly two days to work my way through the five or six pages of questions. Over and over the same answer came back from the Moderator, always sending us all back to an answer posted in 2005. If you keep reading you will find that, like me, most of the Seekers had been unable to get The Answer to work. I tried emailing to point out our difficulties but got no reply. Sadly I had to go back to Word 2003. It has its own problems, but the page numbering area doesn't require a PhD.
Posted by BrianA, 12 Sep 2010