Hi :) LibreOffice works on Windows too and can be installed without making it the default Office Suite. Your colleagues could continue to use MS Office for most things and then just use LibreOffice for the newsletter.
So far it seems that files created in LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) look fairly close to the original when opened in MS Office although for MS Office prior to 2007 the files need to be saved as "Word 98/2000/Xp" format (.doc rather than .docX or .odt). Word 2007 and 2010 can open .odt but handles .doc better. This can be set as the default format in LibreOffice or OpenOffice Tools - Options - "Load/Save" - General and then use the 2 drop-down lists at the bottom to set-up the new defaults (roll back up the list 2 places to see the "98/200/Xp" formats). Sometimes it's just easier to use File - "Save As .." but changing the defaults mean you don't have to worry until after you upgrade again. Were the Hebrew fonts messed up? If that happens it might be possible to install 'better' Hebrew fonts. Usually it is something odd about the way MSO handles text-boxes and pictures, any boxes really. But this can usually be fixed just by dragging the boxes back to the right place Hopefully compatibility will improve but MS like to try to make things difficult so that people are forced into buying their latest Office all the time. Google docs also uses the OpenDocument Formats and compatibility is improving there too. The whole Cloud thing is still a bit new but it's hopefully improving despite occasional set-backs. Encouraging your colleagues to install LibreOffice and make sure it is NOT set as the default Office Suite will help you all move to better compatibility with more systems. They might even find they prefer LibreOffice more and more even though they could always use MSO instead. The icons are nicer and menus more familiar than the ribbon-bar (especially as it looks in MSO 2007). Regards from Tom :) ________________________________ From: Laivy Gelerinter <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, 26 May, 2011 12:12:40 Subject: [libreoffice-users] compatibility with MS Word 2007 files, hebrew I recently downloaded the newest version of Ubuntu in order to try it out as I am not so impressed with Windows. The current download includes LibreOffice. The main thing which would stop me from moving over to Ubuntu is compatibility with MS Office 2007 files. I have been putting out a weekly newsletter in Hebrew for the past 9 years and need to be able to access my MS files and to be able to read them and work with them. I also have some people working with me and they use MS Word and I must be able to successfully transfer files between them and myself. The newsletter is in Hebrew. When I tried opening the MS files using LibreOffice I found that the formatting was very messed up as well as LibreOffice not having the fonts I use and therefore everything came out wrong. How can I get LibreOffice to open these files while maintaining the proper formatting and fonts? I hope there is a way as everything I have heard about Ubuntu and Libreoffice point to them being much more stable and powerful than MS but, as I wrote, I need the compatibility with MS Office 2007 files. Thank you in advance Laivy -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
