Confused about OOo vs MS compatibility

[lphillips]

Having installed over 2,000 PCs with MS Office products over the last few years I have always wanted an option to MS products. If I had my way we would go back to DOS and get a real performer (just wanted to date myself). Never looked at Open Office seriously before so thought I would take a look. I have a tendency to skim through documentation (real nerds don’t have to read tech manuals) and as a result jump to some conclusions that just get me into trouble. I suspect I missed the point with Open Office and may have jump to an initial conculsion that was false so ended up disillusioned very quickly. So this post is an attempt to get me straight.

I was under the impression that Open Office was an option to MS Office and was VERY compatible. That is, you could even mix and match between MS and OO… maybe even within an organization. So perhaps I could begin migrating the organization from MS to OO over a period of time. (Maybe no one would notice.) Certainly it would be more cost effective if it could work like that. This is where I suspect I got off on understanding of what compatibility meant to OO. I downloaded OO 3.1 to my pitiful excuse of an operating system (Vista) and gave it a try. First I read in one of our instruction manuals we maintain in MS Word. OO is obviously not compatible as the manual is not rendered properly at all. It would take hours to go through and straighten out the formatting so it looked the same in OO. Text does not rap around images the same, some tables no longer work properly, etc. So I go into draw and find it much easier to use then figuring out MS drawing stuff. But when I go to save the file, I can’t save it in a doc format (let along docx) or even a pdf format so I can do a combine.

So I am in OO for about 5 minutes I realize I obviously do not understand because clearly this is not going to work. In reality is the OO world primarily orientated to work within its own community or have I missed something? Most organization my company deals with is in the MS world so there is absolutely no way I can move people to OO without a HIGH degree of compatibility. To exchange documents between organizations, maybe between departments, that have to be reformatted practically every time would mean I am brain damaged and better get my resume up to date. Maybe I should be a truck driver instead of an IT Manager. Can I get some candied feedback (on this just MS vs OO compatibility issue) please?

[RoryOF]

In general simple formatting transfers between OO Write and MS Office Word with no problems. More complex formatting can get changed or damaged. Differences are more pronounced in Calc/Excel and Impress/Powerpoint. If you want a seamless transfer, sorry, it can't be done. If one was setting up an office, with no incoming Word/Calc files, then one could cheerfully and productively use OO.

[lphillips]

I suspected I was fantasizing that I could get way from MS but at least I tried. Thanks for the bottom line.

[Hagar de l'Est]

You're touching a key point of the next few years IMHO: the file format. MS Office has imposed its file format as a de facto "standard" for documents. MS has kept its file format secret for years in order to keep the users in the net (vendor lock-in). The problem now is that OOo has introduced a true ISO format, really documented, to allow interoperability. So the real question is not about the compatibility with MS Office but what is your strategy for your documents? Do you want to continue being locked in MS file format (even OOXML that won't be truly documented, especially the MS Office version, different from the ISO version)? Or do you want to get back the property of your data with ODF? But I admit that the change will not be effortless.

NB: see also: White Paper: Open Document Format and Office Open XML.

[RoryOF]

What Hagar says is quite correct. If it were a case of you personally migrating to OO, I'd be all in favour of it, but if you are thinking of migrating clients this will be trouble. If they come and _beg_ you to migrate them, then certainly do it. You will be faced with a massive program of re-education, and of readjustment of existing documents, and they will be faced with costs of retraining and reworking. But I wouldn't advise you spontaneously suggesting that they should migrate, as I think such a project is likely doomed to failure. But by all means try OO yourself.

[JJJoseph]

You cannot say that OO is compatible with Microsoft Office. OO has some limited read/write abilities, but few are compatible with MS applications. OO can read & write an elementary Word 97 doc file, and a simple Excel 97 xls file. But these are not on a par with the latest MS file formats. As long as you are exchanging files with a crowd that only uses Word 97 files, you will be OK, but otherwise you will have endless screaming matches with people who prefer docx files. Powerpoint files can usually play on OO, but the editing of them will drive you crazy.

I find that I have no problem exchanging files with other parents on a Sunday School committee, or a Little League committee, if they all stick to Word 97 files. But I find it's very difficult to use OO in a professional environment. There's just too much friction and too many differences. Business users simply must be able to exchange files with people using the latest MS applications - in spite of the passionate case being made by the open standards group.

[TheGurkha]

I use OOo at work all the time, and exchange documents with MS Office users every day, up to and including Office 2003. It isn't perfect, but it doesn't really create big issues.

As it stands though, OOo can't write to .docx and the other 2007 formats (yet).

[Anuovis]

Hello,

Actually, it seems the 3.1 version can save in .docx now although I never really tried it.

I am also worried about compatibility issues.
Up until now I have been using 2.x versions of OOo on Windows XP and really liked it. Simple text documents looked OK when opened in MS but tables and presentation slides have been ruined most of the time. This is really a problem for me because it means I can not send any such files to people who are using MS. Are there any workarounds or solutions for this? Any converters? What do you OOo people usually do?

I do not yet know what happens if you try to edit MS presentations in OOo. But at least they have been displayed more or less correctly.

[RoryOF]

This is really a problem for me because it means I can not send any such files to people who are using MS. Are there any workarounds or solutions for this?

I do not send files to Word users for editing. If I have to send out a file, I send a pdf of it.

Any converters? What do you OOo people usually do?

All my presentations are done using my laptop which has OpenOffice; the presentations originate in OpenOffice so there is no problem.

I do not yet know what happens if you try to edit MS presentations in OOo. But at least they have been displayed more or less correctly.

The few Powerpoint Presentations I opened in OpenOffice were my own and made a clean transition to OpenOffice format, in which they now live; these were not complex formatting. A lecturer friend prepares Presentations on PowerPoint and presents on OpenOffice with no difficulties, but her presentations are deliberately kept simple - fade between slides, bullet points fly in, simple colour and font formats, no sound or video.

[Anuovis]

Thank you for sharing the experience

One more thing... If Microsoft is really going to add ODF support to the Office Service Pack, would it mean that any OOo document can be read and edited in MS without any problems? Would it be the answer to most compatibility issues?

EDIT: added thanks to the reply above

[RoryOF]

Microsoft intend to do their usual trick and "redefine" the standard. The only certain sure way to maintain Microsoft compatibility is to use MS Office, unfortunately. But there are millions of users of OpenOffice who are happy with its facilities.

[Hagar de l'Est]

If Microsoft is really going to add ODF support to the Office Service Pack, would it mean that any OOo document can be read and edited in MS without any problems? Would it be the answer to most compatibility issues?

See: MS Office 2007 to support ODF in SP2.

Actually, it seems the 3.1 version can save in .docx now although I never really tried it.

Not that I know (with the Sun version at least).

[Anuovis]

Microsoft intend to do their usual trick and "redefine" the standard. The only certain sure way to maintain Microsoft compatibility is to use MS Office, unfortunately. But there are millions of users of OpenOffice who are happy with its facilities.

See: MS Office 2007 to support ODF in SP2

And I had some hope for a second... Thanks for crushing it
Btw, sorry for hijacking a thread here.

[winskie]

I like OOo a lot, and if it were only a question of using it for myself, that would be fine. UNFORTUNATELY, the standard that ALL my clients use is MS Word, and OOo is incapable of translating between the formats, particularly in Tables. I had problems a year ago that caused me to scramble to redo client documents that had been garbled, and wrote into this forum for advice, only to be informed that the conversion of Tables was indeed an issue that would be rectified in an up-coming version of OOo. Now I am using 3.1.1, and just last night, ALL of the table formatting was cleared, leaving just text. So once again I have to scramble to get it into shape that a client can use. There's not enough time in the day to continue to manually re-do documents generated in OOo so that my clients can use them.
In a perfect world, I would continue to use OOo, but until the conversion issue (speaking ONLY of the table problem) can be resolved, I guess I'll have to plunk down the 300 bucks for a new version of MS Word. No other choice that I can see.
What's doubly frustrating is that I feel that OOo is a great product! Darn!

[RoryOF]

Try the beta version of 3.2 http://download.openoffice.org/next/index.html

[acknak]

I guess I'll have to plunk down the 300 bucks for a new version of MS Word. No other choice that I can see.

I love OOo also, but if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to do just this. Life is hard enough without worrying about file compatibility.

I also would not hesitate to pass the extra cost along to my clients who insisted on using MS