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jcravens
Red Pill
Joined: Mar 10, 2008
Posts: 8
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 Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:45 pm Post subject: cannot save format in MS |
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I create a document in NeoOffice. I format it with bulleted text, text with particular indents and margins, etc. I save the document as MS 95 or 97 and then I close it. I open the document back up and all of my formatted margins are gone. The bullets are still there, but text is mashed up against them, and none of the indented text is indented any more. I go through and reformat everything to the way it was. I save the document. I close it. I open it again, and all of my indents are gone again.
The only way to preserve the indents and bullets is to save the document as PDF, and even then, sometimes things go wonky between closing the document and opening it back up (some bullets will be double and triple in size from when I closed the document).
As I share a lot of my work with others, this is getting particularly annoying.
I donated $25 today, so I hope I can qualify to get this problem solved.
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J Cravens
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yoxi
Cipher
Joined: Sep 07, 2004
Posts: 1799
Location: Dawlish, Devon
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Which version of NeoOffice in which version of OSX are you using? Just to get the ball rolling... |
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune
Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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It would also be helpful if you could attach a sample document. Please attach it as a .odt file, with the proper formatting, and we can try to reproduce the formatting changes you are seeing.
Lorinda |
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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If you can provide what yoxi and Lorinda asked for in their posts, we can then move to the next step of troubleshooting the problem. Just to summarize their posts, can you try the following?:
1. Check the NeoOffice version and patch. You can find the version and patch by selecting the Help :: About NeoOffice menu.
2. Attaching an .odt version of your document in your reply. You can attach a document to your reply using the steps in this forum topic.
The reason that Lorinda asked for an .odt document is because when you create or open a document in NeoOffice, NeoOffice converts the document into its internal .odt file format. Then, when you save as a .doc file, NeoOffice converts from ODF to .doc format. By attaching a an .odt file, we can then observe the saving action to determine what is happenig.
Patrick |
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| pluby wrote: | | 2. Attaching an .odt version of your document in your reply. You can attach a document to your reply using the steps in this forum topic. |
I forgot to add that if you no longer have a good .odt copy of your file, then feel free to attach the .doc file and tell us if you saved it as Word 95 or Word 97/2000/XP. It will be more difficult for us to troubleshoot the problem using a .doc file, but a .doc file would still be very helpful if that is all you have.
Patrick |
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jcravens
Red Pill
Joined: Mar 10, 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:42 pm Post subject: more info |
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I'm on 3.0.1 patch 3
I'm running OS 10.5.8
Attached is the NeoOffice version of the document.
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J Cravens
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jcravens
Red Pill
Joined: Mar 10, 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:43 pm Post subject: the MS version |
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And here is the MS 95 version of the same document. Note the bullet formatting is now gone.
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J Cravens
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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I can definitely reproduce the lost bullet formatting when I save your .odt file in Word 95 format and reopen the saved .doc file. I can also reproduce the problem in OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 (the version that NeoOffice is based on) through OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 (their latest version) so this is definitely a limitation in the compatibility of the OpenOffice.org Word 95 export code that NeoOffice uses.
Fortunately, I did find a workaround. I saved your .odt file in the Word 97/2000/XP format and when I reopened the saved .doc file, the bullet formatting was preserved. In general, the older or simpler the file format that you save to, the less formatting can be converted.
The Word 97/2000/XP export code is much more compatible with the .doc file format used in recent versions of Microsoft Word. In contrast, the Word 95 export code is designed to far less compatible because it must create .doc files that Microsoft Word 95 can reliably open. Since Microsoft made massive changes to the .doc file format after Word 95, not all of the formatting in a NeoOffice document can be matched to the limited formatting options in the very old Word 95 .doc file format.
Does saving your .odt file in the newer Word 97/2000/XP format cause any loss in bullet formatting for you?
Patrick |
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jcravens
Red Pill
Joined: Mar 10, 2008
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:35 pm Post subject: more about the bullet problem |
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Based on the last 10 minutes of experimenting:
Saving the document in MS 97 or as RTF preserves bullets and indents.
Saving the document in MS 95 or as MS 6.0 loses all formatted bullets and indents, as least as far as I have found out in the last 10 minutes.
For those of us who are just end users and are choosing NeoOffice as our alternative to MS for all of our word-processing needs, this is *really* important to know. Should I/May I/Will someone add this to the NeoOffice wiki?
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J Cravens
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:47 pm Post subject: Re: more about the bullet problem |
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| jcravens wrote: | | Saving the document in MS 97 or as RTF preserves bullets and indents. |
I would recommend using the Word 97/2000/XP .doc format over RTF if you want to read your documents in Microsoft Office. The reason is that RTF is even older than the Word 95 format. So, while bullets are OK for you, the RTF file format cannot support things like tables that Word and NeoOffice can.
I am not sure where to put it in the NeoWiki, but we definitely can find a place to describe how the list of file formats listed in the Save and Save As dialogs are listed from most compatible at the top to least compatible at the bottom.
Patrick |
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sardisson
Town Crier
Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 8:45 pm Post subject: Re: more about the bullet problem |
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| pluby wrote: | | I am not sure where to put it in the NeoWiki, but we definitely can find a place to describe how the list of file formats listed in the Save and Save As dialogs are listed from most compatible at the top to least compatible at the bottom. |
It's already on http://neowiki.neooffice.org/index.php/Improving_Compatibility_with_Microsoft_Office | NeoWiki wrote: | | Save using the Word/Excel/PowerPoint 97/2000/XP document format for widest and best compatibility; translators for older and newer formats are not as robust, and older formats do not support all the document features of the 97/2000/XP format. |
I also added additional warnings to Setting the default file format for saving.
Smokey
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 10:57 pm Post subject: Re: more about the bullet problem |
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Thanks for updating the NeoWiki article. Although I suspect that the Latin "mutatis mutandis" phrase may be a bit unclear for those of us who don't regularly use Latin but I cannot think of a better way to write that line. 
Patrick |
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yoxi
Cipher
Joined: Sep 07, 2004
Posts: 1799
Location: Dawlish, Devon
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| Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:30 am Post subject: |
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As for mutatis mutandis, I'd write:
"...do the same (or equivalent) for..."
I think that carries the same meaning in this context, and needs no translation  . |
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