Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hi,

I've OO 3.1.1-4 on Debian Sid (x86-64, vanilla 2.6.31.3). I'm trying to export OO document (odt) to .doc (or .docx), but every time most of the tables (and sometimes graphs) go missing.

I did roughly something like this:
1) create a table in OO Calc (with very limited formatting and equations, nothing more than +-/*).
2) copy & paste the table to Writer document (gets pasted as OLE object)

If I save the document as ODF (1.2), I can open it on other computers without any problems (no link to the spreadsheet). If I save the document as MS Word 97-2000-XP, 2003 XML, 2007 XML, the following happens:
a) if I use OO to open the document, tables go missing when I double click them.
b) if I use MS Office (2007), tables and graphs go missing immediately
c) if I use MS Office on a computer with OO, MS Office and doubleclick the table, MS Office tries to run OO Calc.

My assumptions: OO (incorrectly?) exports the table as some kind of an OO OLE object, incompatible with MS Office. What would be the correct procedure to export the document to MS Office (either 97-2000-XP .doc or 2007 XML)?

Flame icon removed. That icon means 'Tagged to a known issue' (TheGurkha, Moderator)

Welcome to this forum karel!

Your assumption is correct: OOo is not perfect in creating word documents and it seems that complex tables are often wrongly converted. The reason is that until recently, Microsoft didn't release the structure of its Office files and therefore the developers had to code the export filter by 'trial-and-error'.

OOo is a community and you can help here: use this tutorial to review the list of bugs, search the ones that are close to your problem and vote for them. You can also submit an entry with your file this may help the developers to produce a better filter in the coming releases.

squenson wrote:Welcome to this forum karel!

Your assumption is correct: OOo is not perfect in creating word documents and it seems that complex tables are often wrongly converted. The reason is that until recently, Microsoft didn't release the structure of its Office files and therefore the developers had to code the export filter by 'trial-and-error'.

OOo is a community and you can help here: use this tutorial to review the list of bugs, search the ones that are close to your problem and vote for them. You can also submit an entry with your file this may help the developers to produce a better filter in the coming releases.

Technically, it's a rather simple table with nothing special (I would expect people to use office suit exactly this way). The problem is, OO cannot convert the table (while saving to .doc) to something readable by both programs. Is there an option to convert the OLE object (table) to RTF / unformatted text / HTML after it has been inserted into the Writer document?

(I need to save to doc to pass the document to other people, and it has to be saved to .doc because of a macro that will be used to do some special things when it's finished).

I can't replicate the problem, saving your document in Ubuntu (OO3.0.1) as a .doc does not effect the tables, I can double click on them and edit them without a problem. Same on my XP machine (OO3.1.1).

If I open it in Word2007 I can still see the tables, but I can't edit them as Word can't communicate with the program that created them (Calc). If you want to share documents with users of other office suits then pasting as OLE objects is not a smart move, paste as GDI metafiles or create the tables in Writer instead.