LibreOffice vs MSOffice compatibility

[aykoola]

So, the time has come to write my bachelor's degree, diploma, or however you call it where you come from. My only question is, how's LO's compatibility with .doc and .docx since the 4.0 version. Is it 'safe' to perform all of my tasks on it, or should i install Win after 2 years just to use friggin Office?

Your opinions please :) ?

Thanks very much!

[lz1dsb]

The last time I tried LO and MS office compatibility, there was an issue with the document formatting. Unfortunately it was maybe an year ago, and I still haven't tried version 4.0. If this formatting issue is fixed, it would be way, way better.
I'm also interested in this topic, even though I rarely need to use that compatibility. Since January, I started writing my personal documents in LO format only... But anyway, it's nice to know how the things are going. I'll follow this thread with interest.
Wish you luck and success with you Thesis, I've done a few, and I know that it could be quite frustrating sometimes :)

[kurt18947]

I haven't had the need to swap MSO documents with 'outsiders' lately so take this for what it's worth.

-I'm under the impression that saving as .doc works better than saving as .docx.

-Any chance of submitting as a .pdf?

-Newer MSO is supposed to recognize open document files. How well? Dunno.

-Isn't there some sort of Microsoft sponsored online service where you can open and view (and make simple edits of?) MSO documents? Do a small part, upload and check?
Edit: Here 'tis http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps-help/get-started-with-office-web-apps-HA101785172.aspx

[mips]

WPS Office apparently has much better MS support. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2121775

[mike acker]

So, the time has come to write my bachelor's degree, diploma, or however you call it where you come from. My only question is, how's LO's compatibility with .doc and .docx since the 4.0 version. Is it 'safe' to perform all of my tasks on it, or should i install Win after 2 years just to use friggin Office?

Your opinions please :) ?

Thanks very much!

my daughter is enrolled in an online-U (Baker) . I had to get her a student copy of MSFT Office as LO was not acceptable .

I have LO 4.0.2.2 installed on my U-box. It appears that when I save a document as OOXML ( .docx ) that it is more likely to be accepted in the MSFT/Office 2010 version of Word -- than it ever was earlier

the obvious caveat is : do some testing . my daughter has to write in APA format and that format seems to convert OK .

the content of your material could affect your conversion . Find a friend with msft/office 2010 installed and do some testing.

earlier when i tried to open a LO formatted .docx using msft/office 2010 office would gleefully announce: your file is corrupt!! Use genuine msft/office or WALK the PLANK!!

this seems to have gone away with LO 4

msft should be walking the plank though: they manipulated ISO into accepting their OOXML as an ISO standard . now that they did that they really should accept ooxml formatted documents from any writer,-- but don't bet on it. they'll try to find a way to maintain their stinking monopoly and you CAN bet on that !!

[d.atanasov]

Hi
If you really need a nice and beautiful piece of document you should chose LaTeX and produce a pdf. This way you will have more options and freedom. I have been introduced to it since 3-4 years and after that I complete switched to it. I don`t know on what subject will be your Bachelor Thesis, but if you have a lot of equations this is the right tool for it. And of course you don`t have to switch to Windows :) as is it open source.
Here is more about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX
I use also a program to make it easier to write called "Kile" http://kile.sourceforge.net/

I hope that you will like it :)

cheers

[monkeybrain2012]

Depends on the subject. If it is scientific or mathematical, forget about Office Suite, LaTex is the way to go. If it is just a lot of words (no equations), can't see why LO is not acceptable and you can always export to pdf (and MSO is supposed to support odf so I would just save in that format unless your professor complains)Finally if you are trying to get a MicroSoft certified degree then of course you have to use it, but there is no such degree in any respectable university as far as I know :) (Some community colleges and private u have courses and programs built around MS products but they are not real universities)

[Bucky Ball]

I completed my bachelor's over a year ago and am into the second year of my honours. I've never used anything but Libreoffice and Openoffice (take your pick, they're pretty much the same) throughout that six and nearly a half years. Zotero for referencing is fantastic and has a word processor plugin that adds icons to Libre/Openoffice so you can put bibliographies, footnotes into the document directly from the word processor. Perfect setup, for my needs at least.

Staff have never had a problem with any .doc files or anything else I've sent (have done presentations and saved in Powerpoint format to use on the uni AV system also; flawless). You can export your document directly to PDF from Libre/Office so that's another option and what I normally do, especially for final reports and stuff for the printers. Good luck.

[forrestcupp]

I'm interested to see how well they fixed the docx support in the latest version, too. LO has never had any problem with the old doc format at all. But docx used to really suck for saving. It never really had a problem opening them, though. But in the past, if you had any bullet points and saved from LO to docx, it would be majorly screwed up. I wonder if they fixed that.

Anyway, just so you know. You don't have to install Windows. As far as I know, all versions of MS Office can be made to work almost perfectly with Wine, and it's even easy to install if you use PlayOnLinux. There's no reason to install Windows just to use MSO.

[Bucky Ball]

There's no reason to install Windows just to use MSO.

True. I don't know if there's any reason to use MSO, depending on needs. Just export PDFs. The formatting can't change then (and no-one can change your work, either, which I what I like). ;)

Other thing you could try (I've thought about it but never tried because never had to) is create a new document and immediately save it as .docx. Will that show the formatting as it will be on a Win machine? Why not just use .doc files? I figure newer MSOs which use .docx would be able to read them, no?

[Lars Noodén]

...Just export PDFs. The formatting can't change then ...

That's a good call. MSO will break your other formats, especially ODF. Also, whatever you do don't save an ODF file from MSO, it will break lots of small things. That's just how the company is. I recently had it screw up the background, indentations/style, and made non-printing sections visible/printed to name just three things.

PDFs will look good on all systems regardless of which fonts are installed or missing. How it looks on the screen in PDF is pretty much how it will look when it is printed.

[monkeybrain2012]

I'm interested to see how well they fixed the docx support in the latest version, too. LO has never had any problem with the old doc format at all. But docx used to really suck for saving. It never really had a problem opening them, though. But in the past, if you had any bullet points and saved from LO to docx, it would be majorly screwed up. I wonder if they fixed that..

And I wonder why anyone would want to save in docx, just unnecessarily perpetuating MS's closed formats. The only way to solve the compatibility problem between MSO and other office suits is to ditch MSO. If it is not possible at least try, whenever feasible, not to play MS's game by helping its latest effort to subvert open standard.

[forrestcupp]

True. I don't know if there's any reason to use MSO, depending on needs. Just export PDFs. The formatting can't change then (and no-one can change your work, either, which I what I like). ;)

Other thing you could try (I've thought about it but never tried because never had to) is create a new document and immediately save it as .docx. Will that show the formatting as it will be on a Win machine? Why not just use .doc files? I figure newer MSOs which use .docx would be able to read them, no?
PDFs don't work if you're doing a collab or if the person you're giving it to needs to be able to edit it. Plus I actually have noticed times when the fonts and formatting weren't exactly the same.

I agree, though, that if you have to use LO, saving to a doc is the best option. Even if someone sends you a docx, LO will open it perfectly, and you can just save it as a doc. One thing about docx files, though, is that they are much smaller in size than a doc file is.

But my original point was really that you can run MSO in Linux pretty much perfectly.

[smellyman]

closed formats rule!

Can't wait until LO isn't blamed for "breaking" MSO documents.

[ugm6hr]

Your opinions please :) ?

Why do you say you need to save in .docx at all? If you've been using LO for 2 years, why not just keep using it?

If the issue is edits by your supervisor, I would actually suggest you save as .doc for them to review and edit, but then manually re-enter any suggestions into your original .odt file (use the compare versions function which retrospetively tracks changes). This serves 2 purposes: it ensures you actually read every suggestion; any inconsistent formatting by your supervisor will be removed by your own care in re-entering changes. Don't underestimate the impression that appearance gives to examiners.

Or consider Lyx / latex as others have suggested. Though this is perhaps overkill (in terms of learning curve) for an undergrad thesis if you haven't used it before. Though I learned to use Lyx to write my doctorate.

The only other consideration is a citation manager. Zotero is very good. Mendeley is closed source, but free, and also pretty helpful. Take your pick - both have LO plugins.

Worst case - Word 2007 will run in wine almost flawlessly. Not sure about 2010, but probably similar. You can even install Mendeley in wine to use alongside.

Good luck.

[mike acker]

True. I don't know if there's any reason to use MSO, depending on needs. Just export PDFs. The formatting can't change then (and no-one can change your work, either, which I what I like). ;)

Other thing you could try (I've thought about it but never tried because never had to) is create a new document and immediately save it as .docx. Will that show the formatting as it will be on a Win machine? Why not just use .doc files? I figure newer MSOs which use .docx would be able to read them, no?

Exporting to PDF

YES: Exporting to PDF is The Way to Go -- unless the professor asks for WORD format . My daughter's professor did exactly that -- and then scribbled in the documents using red ink

But yes: PDF is The Way to Go if the document is in a "final/publish" condition .

[pfeiffep]

Saving a LO text document as a 97 Word document will result in most compatability.

[aykoola]

Thanks for all of your answers guys, you've been extremely helpful!

[monkeybrain2012]

Exporting to PDF

YES: Exporting to PDF is The Way to Go -- unless the professor asks for WORD format . My daughter's professor did exactly that -- and then scribbled in the documents using red ink

But yes: PDF is The Way to Go if the document is in a "final/publish" condition .

I wonder what kind of university would offer courses on using word processor (the only reason I can understand the requirement) Does he/she pay for your daughter's MSO?

[mr john]

Open/Libre office is very disorganised, buggy and of very poor quality. I think I'll stick with the much superior microsoft products.

[forrestcupp]

I wonder what kind of university would offer courses on using word processor (the only reason I can understand the requirement) Does he/she pay for your daughter's MSO?
MSO usually costs next to nothing in most college bookstores, at least in the US.

[monkeybrain2012]

MSO usually costs next to nothing in most college bookstores, at least in the US.

As a way to cultivate addiction and dependency to the MS brand, sure. But it is not a matter of cost,. there is no bloody reason why someone has to buy MSO to write an essay in English literature, even if it costs only $10, it is still $10 too much, which could be better spent in donating or buying booze than going to MS's pocket.

[forrestcupp]

As a way to cultivate addiction and dependency to the MS brand, sure. But it is not a matter of cost,. there is no bloody reason why someone has to buy MSO to write an essay in English literature, even if it costs only $10, it is still $10 too much, which could be better spent in donating or buying booze than going to MS's pocket.

On the other hand, it's an industry standard, like Photoshop is an industry standard. Gimp can't do everything that a pro needs Photoshop for. And why should we expect the rest of the word processing world to not use the standard docx files just because an extremely small minority is using LibreOffice, which sucks at saving in that format?

At least for college students, they don't make them pay the hundreds of dollars for it, and they're setting them up to have what they need when they get out into the work world.

[monkeybrain2012]

On the other hand, it's an industry standard, like Photoshop is an industry standard. Gimp can't do everything that a pro needs Photoshop for. And why should we expect the rest of the word processing world to not use the standard docx files just because an extremely small minority is using LibreOffice, which sucks at saving in that format?

At least for college students, they don't make them pay the hundreds of dollars for it, and they're setting them up to have what they need when they get out into the work world.

Depending on what you mean by "college". If it is a community college which is just a glorified vocational school then sure, here in Canada there are some "colleges" which actually offer version specific Office courses, they produce graduates who have to be retrained whenever MicroSoft comes up with a new interface for Office or hide the buttons in different places. These are not universities and the people who teach in such places are not "professors". A community college instructor calling himself a "professor" is a misrepresentation on par of a night watchman calling himself a police inspector. I think in Canada the division is very clear, whereas in the U.S. there are some private "universities" which are actually just community colleges.

On the other hand, universities are not supposed to teach "industrial standard" which becomes obsolete in a few years, but to produce people who know how to think and learn abstractly, and hopefully creating new standards. I actually knew someone who taught a MSO course in a local college, the guy was a grad student in anthropology and never used MSO himself (he used OOO) , he just picked it up when he was teaching the course and had a good laugh that people actually paid to learn this in school.

[forrestcupp]

Depending on what you mean by "college". If it is a community college which is just a glorified vocational school then sure, here in Canada there are some "colleges" which actually offer version specific Office courses, they produce graduates who have to be retrained whenever MicroSoft comes up with a new interface for Office or hide the buttons in different places. These are not universities and the people who teach in such places are not "professors". A community college instructor calling himself a "professor" is a misrepresentation on par of a night watchman calling himself a police inspector. I think in Canada the division is very clear, whereas in the U.S. there are some private "universities" which are actually just community colleges.

On the other hand, universities are not supposed to teach "industrial standard" which becomes obsolete in a few years, but to produce people who know how to think and learn abstractly, and hopefully creating new standards. I actually knew someone who taught a MSO course in a local college, the guy was a grad student in anthropology and never used MSO himself (he used OOO) , he just picked it up when he was teaching the course and had a good laugh that people actually paid to learn this in school.
Are you really going to tell a single mother who worked her backside off to earn a bachelor's degree at a community college that she didn't go to a real university, so her degree doesn't mean squat? That's kind of a snobbish attitude to have.

But to be clear, I wasn't talking about classes teaching MSO. What I was saying is that MSO is what is used in the work world. Thus, it is the industry standard. If you think it's just the community colleges that require MSO files and real universities don't, then you're sorely mistaken. One of the big reasons they offer MSO so cheap in their bookstores is so that students can be equipped for the work world when they are out of school. Just because you don't like Office doesn't change the fact that Office is what the majority of real world offices use.

[monkeybrain2012]

Are you really going to tell a single mother who worked her backside off to earn a bachelor's degree at a community college that she didn't go to a real university, so her degree doesn't mean squat? That's kind of a snobbish attitude to have..

That is a comment on the quality of "education" offered in these colleges and I stand by it. The proper sociological conclusion from your single mother example is that in the U.S. single mothers with kids are being short changed by the system so they are forced into getting a sub par education, it has nothing to do with the ability or intelligence of single moms with kids and it doesn't have to be that way (consider the Scandinavian countries)


But to be clear, I wasn't talking about classes teaching MSO. What I was saying is that MSO is what is used in the work world. Thus, it is the industry standard. If you think it's just the community colleges that require MSO files and real universities don't, then you're sorely mistaken. One of the big reasons they offer MSO so cheap in their bookstores is so that students can be equipped for the work world when they are out of school. Just because you don't like Office doesn't change the fact that Office is what the majority of real world offices use.


Well I am a science major (so I don't use any officesuit) but many of my friends are in the humanities, among them a few professors who publish in professional journals, while most of them use MSO (old versions) but not all, and I have never heard of a requirement to use MSO to submit papers

My math prof used to say, as long as you can prove the theorems I don't care if you write it on toilet papers. Granted that may be a bit extreme, but the idea is that if we are smart enough to prove math theorems, we are smart enough to go RTFM for the "industrial standard",in my case would be LaTex. The course is on math, not text editing.

Yes, there are discount in the bookstore, that is MS's marketing, I have no doubt MS would hope that MSO becomes "required courseftware" as they like to hook people on "MicroSoft's solutions" , integrated packages to lock customers in,--and they are pushing MSS for education in U.S.'s highschool at tax payers' expenses,-- the bookstores are not affiliated with the teaching part of the university, they are just businesses, they also offer student discounts for iPhones.

[Bucky Ball]

Thread Closed

Please carry on the debate in private. This thread has run its course, is getting wildly off topic and can come to no good.