New to Lubuntu, question about docx and increasing size of things

**hrafnagudh** · July 13th, 2020

Thank you

**cmcanulty** · July 13th, 2020

In libre office open any of the programs like writer and you can set the preferred way to save any file. So go to tools-options-load- save-general-then in the drop down box choose text document and below that always save as. Then the same for spreadsheets or any libre office type. All can be done from writer no need to open each type of office document. I still make mine save as .doc because anyone can open that from anywhere. ODF is also pretty universal but most people don't know what that is and they freak out if they see that type of document.

**hrafnagudh** · August 7th, 2020

My only problem with ODF was exactly that people complains sometimes about it not being the classical docx. And I was a little prejudiced too, since some years ago I tried Libreoffice and had big compatibility problems, expecially in the format.
But now I had no problem, I also solved my Mendeley issues with the docx I am keeping working on

**kurt18947** · August 7th, 2020

Originally Posted by cmcanulty

In libre office open any of the programs like writer and you can set the preferred way to save any file. So go to tools-options-load- save-general-then in the drop down box choose text document and below that always save as. Then the same for spreadsheets or any libre office type. All can be done from writer no need to open each type of office document. I still make mine save as .doc because anyone can open that from anywhere. ODF is also pretty universal but most people don't know what that is and they freak out if they see that type of document.

This used to be the recommended method for creating MSOffice editable files in Libre Office. LibreOffice would read .docx files correctly, it wouldn't always create .docx files correctly. DocX is not a static file format, there are versions being created - I think a new version was released recently. .doc seems to be a static file format, it is not longer being "improved" by Microsoft so is not a moving target to emulate. If a document doesn't need to be editable, .pdf is my preferred file format. I've never had any complaints about it.

Another thing you could try to improve MSOffice compatibility would be to install MS Core fonts. That package includes fonts like Arial and Times New Roman. Older but MSOffice users should have them on their machines so one less incompatibility.

**cmcanulty** · August 7th, 2020

Also in libre office you can go to tools-options-load save-general and set it to automatically save it to any odf or any microsoft format. You can set all the apps from any of the libre office parts

**TheFu** · August 8th, 2020

Microsoft Word has supported ODF for some time, BTW. Best to avoid proprietary data file formats. Stick with open standards, so any program of a similar type can use the data.