problems with converter neooffice and ms word

[wolli]

hi i`ve got some problems with my files ...
some of my files which i use are made with word 2000
if i change a little bit on the layout of the document ... like deleting some
break`s or something like that, i save the document with save as in ms file format .doc ... after clicking save neooffice tells me that something is wrong with the file format when saving into annother format then neooffice ... i know this message but the time before it worked without problems ... ok he told me this message this was the only problem ... after closing the file i reopen the file ... and all layout work i`ve done is away ...
if i save my document to neooffice format the changes theres no problem ... no message and it works after closing and reopen ...
i`ve also tryed to save in neo format and convert it after doing my changes to word format ... but it won`t work ... is this a problem made by myself or is there another problem ?
i run a power book titan with 768 mb of ram 40 gb hd and 400 mhz
system is mac os x 10.3.8 darwin ...
thanks for helping me

[Guest]

The sad truth?

billy will never allow his proprietary gold mine to be 100% compatible with anything else.

This may or may not help in trying to keep up with him

http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1091&sid=e611f8564381142ae581a9074e79a67d

[jjmckenzie51]

[OPENSTEP]

Also note that OOo (and, by its design, NeoOffice), is "clever"...

When you save a file in a non OpenOffice.org/OpenDocument format, the application will display a "nag" warning at you saying that some formatting information will be lost unless you save the file in OpenOffice.org/OpenDocument format.

Is this warning meaningful? Yes and no...

Yes in the sense that it is true; you may lose some information when exporting to Microsoft Office formats, such as StarBasic OOo-specific macros and perhaps some formatting information for vector drawing, equations, and other complex elements.

The warning is not important, however, in the sense that if you save in a MS Office format the main content won't be lost. In fact, if you re-open that exported doc. in OOo you'll get a better feel for what you can't actually export to Microsoft formats (it's very limited in my experience).

It's a good warning in that it does remind people that the Microsoft and OOo formats aren't exactly 100% compatible with one another. It's a bad warning in the sense that it's really ominous and implies that users need to save in the OOo format.

That sucks, IMHO, since it seems to "trick" people into using an open format that, for better or for worse, is not able to be read by 90% of the standard business office suites in use. For me, tricking people into thinking the OpenOffice.org/OASIS format is some type of a "requirement" is sleazy.

Ignore the warning and you'll be fine alebit some lost bullet fonts, numbering, and equations. For simple documents and memos there's nearly no difference between savingin OOo and MS formats

ed

[sardisson]

[Guest]

ed said:

"It's a good warning in that it does remind people that the Microsoft and OOo formats aren't exactly 100% compatible with one another. It's a bad warning in the sense that it's really ominous and implies that users need to save in the OOo format.

That sucks, IMHO, since it seems to "trick" people into using an open format that, for better or for worse, is not able to be read by 90% of the standard business office suites in use. For me, tricking people into thinking the OpenOffice.org/OASIS format is some type of a "requirement" is sleazy."

Exactly, the warning did indeed "scare" me when I first started using OOo and Neo/J but you get the "feel" for what it will and won't handle eventually (preserve when saved in .doc format). I still save everything in .doc format because that is "our reality" and that annoys me. (see post a few above re: NEVER reaching 100% compataibility as that takes cooperation on BOTH esides). Actually, I perfer to use Appleworks and roll the dice with whether MacLinks plus can handle the translation but that's another matter. Call me old-fashoned. I guess I'll try iWork eventually..

I was going to post the same thing earlier as it seemed like the original poster was over reacting to the warning in the intial save dialog box and also in the confirming dialog box when you close a document or exit the program(s), which I can understand with the way the boxes are worded.

[OPENSTEP]

Can you think of any better wording for those warnings? I'm sure at least we could change them in NeoJ to be a bit friendlier or at least a bit more relevant. We should be able to change the wording in the res files.

As to the size reduction...this is another pet peeve of mine and one of my reasons why I do hate claims that the OOo format is superior based on size arguments...

The OOo file format is compressed automatically. It's using zlib to save its XML files as compressed archives (note to self, check the version of zlib within OOo to see if that zlib buffer overflow fix is in there). This really is cheating...if you try to re-compress OOo files you get much less compression than for Office files.

To be fair to Microsoft, the "savings" should really be compared after both have been gzipped

ed

[ovvldc]

[pluby]

If you want to change the wording in OOo resource files, I really suggest that you to the OOo people. Although Ed makes it sound trivial, it is not in the Neo/J build. As such, I put this type of change in the same category as reorganizing all of the menus, etc.

Patrick

[OPENSTEP]

Wonk, yeah, I forgot about the translations and the like. Sorry if I made it sound easier then it really is, me stupid American. I only speak English and C++ and some pidgin Objective C...

ed

[jjmckenzie51]