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/we...101785172.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?