Hi :) +1 to most of that. There is a wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_2004_for_Mac although the intro is a bit confusing. It does point out that the default format is .doc rather than the newer .docX which is good but does mean you can't open them as zip files.
Newer Microsoft Office can read/write .odt files but they can only cope with the older ODF formats, NOT the 1.2! So it is better to save documents in the older 1.0 / 1.1 format NOT the 1.2 Extended! Sadly that is not great for spreadsheets. It might be that pulling documents in as 1.2 is better and then saving as 1.1 if you need to share with MS Office users. If you can avoid MS Office users or convince them to install almost any other Office Suite alongside MS Office (such as LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Calligra, AbiWord, Lotus Symphony Suite or use Google-docs) then sticking with 1.2 is best. It's only MS Office that can't cope. An increasing number of people are using LibreOffice/OpenOffice so an increasing amount of documents are in the ODF 1.2 format so MS Office users are going to have to become better at reading them. Can you find out what format the files are in? The file-ending helps. It is very strange that it's trying to figure out Ascii filter options. That makes it sound like a very non-standard format or perhaps a wonky .rtf If you could tell us the format we might be able to help better. There might be an add-on / Extension that does a better job of converting/filtering. At Microsoft.com there is this page http://support.microsoft.com/ph/2531 although i tend to find their advice creates problems or doesn't work or abandons you halfway through an explanation or misses vital steps. With other help sites if you are given a choice between 2003 and 2007 go with the advice for 2003 as that is what 2004 is based on and is most similar to. Regards from Tom :) --- On Fri, 13/1/12, Jay Lozier <[email protected]> wrote: From: Jay Lozier <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Problem With "ASCII Filter Options" To: [email protected] Date: Friday, 13 January, 2012, 1:48 On 01/12/2012 07:01 PM, David Werner wrote: > Hi, > > I use a MacMini, running Lion. I upgraded from Snow Leopard, with which I > could read/write Word2004 documents. Lion won't let me do that. I do not want > to purchase MicrosoftOffice 2011, so i've downloaded LibreOffice3. (3.3.3) > > I won't go into detail with other conversion problems. The main one is when a > document is listed as a LibreOpen Document& I try to open it w/ > LibreOffice3, I get a window, "ASCII Filter Options." I click ok,& get a > document filled w/ # signs, among others. This seems to be a problem on other > websites involving the "ASCII Filter Options" issue, but none of the topics > relate to Word2004. It's always about Word2003 or Word2007. > > What can I do to solve this problem? Or, can I NOT do anything to solve it? > Would appreciate any advice or links you can give me. > > David I would expect Word2003 to be a very similar to Word2004. I believe W04 is the Mac version of W03 and uses the same file extensions. So I would try a solution suggested for W03 unless it specifically says the problem is a Windows (OS) problem not an Office problem. If the file is an *.odt or *.msox you can use a zip utility to open it and find the xml file with the data in it. This trick does not work W03/W04 files. Also, check the default ODF version in LO, it should be 1.2 extended (Tools>Options>Load/Save>General). You may want to check Microsoft Office settings under Load/Save. -- Jay Lozier [email protected] -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
