I successfully created a document in Writer by opening a Word template in writer, writing the document, saving the result as an OO Writer xml document, previewing the document and printing it as a PDF. I'm using OO writer 2.3.1.
The problem arises when I them open the document once again. The template information is gone and the layout of the document is garbaged and it is not garbaged consistently. Three creations of the document resulted in three differently garbaged documents when reopened.
One suspects the Word .dot template has a hand in this. I can't find a reference by searching the forum so any suggestions will be well received.
BTW, is there a known or planned date for compatibility with Office 2007 file structures?
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When You save as odt, there should be no problem with keeping the format, when saving as xml writer tells You that some page formats can´t be saved, so it´s obvious that there are some imcompatibilities between MS and Opensource.
Solutions:
- use open office portable as default with proper formats
- use pdf files for exchange (problem : You need "acrobat" for editing the file or else, try "papyrus" http://www.rom-logicware.com/ ,that has the ability to save editable pdf files - both closed source and You have to pay for them)
-install the odt plugin for word 2003 into MS word application, then You can save the file as odt and reopen it easily with Your MS application; no need to change the file format. http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisici elit, sed eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis .." Friday Next -
"May The Schwartz be with You!" Yogurt the Yoda
Well, it may be that some page formatting can't be saved, but still you'd expect OO to save what formatting it can in a consistent and usable manner.
And why PDF as the format for exchanging files? It is a print-only medium. That's like saying "print it to paper and use the paper as the medium for exchanging files." (I know Adobe has been working hard to make PDF less oriented to page layout, but it's like trying to turn a piece of paper into a keyboard ... a completely mixed metaphor.)
Surely there is some other format that the two programs have in common. Even HTML would maintain enough formatting to be better than PDF.
At any rate, I doubt this is a problem with OOPortable only, so it should probably go to the OOo site.
MC
in .dot files can´t be preserved in xml by Oo. As I said it´s a problem between MS and Ooo.
I presumed the OP having problems with exchanging files between Word and OO or between work and home PC.
PDF is used very often as a template where others in a team can add comments by the adobe reader but editing is restricted to privileged users (= portable document file).
The sun odt plugin is a translater that works within word, but it has to be installed,ok,so it might not be available for users on PCs with restricted rights.
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisici elit, sed eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis .." Friday Next -
"May The Schwartz be with You!" Yogurt the Yoda
Thanks for your feedback and comments, which are much appreciated.
I've tinkered around with this to establish what works and what doesn't. My findings are not universally true but appear generally to apply and offer a practical solution to those who work is an MS-orientated office (no pun intended) but prefer to use PortableApps for a truly liberating and portable working experience.
Essentially, MS Word can't really read the Open Office file format and, perhaps more dangerously, Open Office can't properly manage the MS Word file format, though it gives the impression that it can - until you attempt to open a previously saved document.
You can create an Open Office Writer Portable document by starting with an MS Word template (.dot) then add your content and finally save as and Open Document Text file (.odt). The resultant file loads fine in Writer but not in Word. No Solution here.
Doing the same but saving as a Word xml file loses the .doc stuff (headers, images, etc.) and has some odd effects on the text (altering fonts and font sizes are examples - this seems particularly true with a hyperlink in the body of the document). No Solution here either.
Saving as a Microsoft XP, 2000, 97 format (.doc) seems to result in a file that may be correctly read and modified on both platforms. This seems to be the solution.
Clearly the XP/2000/97 file format is now a grandparent since 2003 uses xml and 2007 uses docx but at least it seems to work in both applications and changes in one are correctly read in t'other.
The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. From a personal point of view one may use whatever solution one prefers but when one is dealing with documents created by others or if one is obliged to use one package in one place but has different software in another (or PortableApps) then one may simply save any document in the XP/2000/97 format and, as the saying goes, Robert is, in short, your father's brother:-).
Hi MartynB,
Thanks for the good work.
Did you do this using Office 2003 as I cannot find the 2000/XP file format under Office 2007. The only one seems to be 98-2003 which is the format we've been using without much success as per my post https://portableapps.com/node/16152
I tried Sun's Pdf importer extention, but this looks like it will only work for minor editing.
Thanks again.
Paul