On Monday, January 08, 2007 11:09 AM [GMT+1=CET], Jim Smith
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have used OpenOffice in the past when it claimed to be 100%
compatible with MS Word. Unfortunately, I discovered that it was not.
When graphics such as drawings made with Word, pictures, or imported
clip art were used, the formatting and display of these would break
down.
If I fixed them, a tedious and time-consuming process, they would
appear OK, until they were re-opened in Word, then they would be wrong
again. This means they could not be exchanged with Word users. As a
professional writer who submits most things in electronic format, this
was unacceptable.
Has new versions of OpenOffice addressed this incompatibility? Also,
is there a utility to convert documents to and from Adobe .pdf format?
Is there a way to test these things without first going to
OpenOffice?
Thanks,
James Smith
João Pessoa, Brazil
First, I very much doubt that OpenOffice (OO) has ever claimed to be
100% compatible with Microsoft's (MS) products. Until MS updates its
products to be able to handle ISO (International Standards Organistion)
Open Document Format, OO can never be compatible with them because they
are closed - many of their features are undocumented and/or unusable on
legal grounds. It is possible that the latest version of OO (2.1) has
fixed some of the problems you have encountered in the past. It is
possible that it has not. It is possible, though unlikely, that the
latest version has introduced new incompatibilities.
OO is largely compatible with MS but many complex layouts will not
taranslate "correctly". Please also note that many documents do not
translate "correctly" from one version of Word to the next (or
previous).
OO can save documents (or e-mail them directly without saving them
first) in PDF format but cannot open them. I don't believe that Word can
do either.
You can get free software that will allow any application that can print
to create PDF documents. This software installs a "virtual" printer. You
print your document/e-mail/whatever to this printer and the result is a
PDF file that can be e-mailed, printed, read by Adobe Acrobat etc. I
personally use PDF Creator from http://www.pdfforge.org but a search
engine will reveal others. Of course these files can't be edited by OO
or by Word.
Harold Fuchs
London, England
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
