Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I am extremely new to Open Office but already love it due to the free download. I have just become an at home assistant to a client and I only have Open Office. She uses Microsoft Office. I received a document (xlsx) and was able to save it and open it to OpenOffice. My question is, in order to send it back to her, how do I make it a universal (CSV) file so that she is able to read it and make changes? Is this possible to do? All answers are welcome!

Save as xls which is Microsoft's old binary format, still supported by Excel and almost fully supported by OOo.
csv is a database exchange format which stores only one sheet's raw data to a text file without formulas, formattings, annotations nor anything.

Thank you for your advice. I have tried doing that, and seeing if it would open into Microsoft Excel 2007 before I sent it to the client and it wouldn't. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Any specific layout or formulas in your file? Can you upload a sample file (don't hesitate to fake numbers), see How to attach a document here.

If you Save As to .xls, Office 2007 should open it no problem. Are you sure you saved as .xls, and not in .ods with the .xls extension?

Use 'Save As' and then pick Microsoft Excel 97/2000/Xp (.xls)' from the drop down, and make sure the 'Automatic File Name Extension' option is selected.

here is an example

I've converted the file to .xls with OOo 3.1.1 on my xubuntu Karmic box, can someone with MS Excel check it?

NB: your signature says you're using 3.0, can you upgrade to latest 3.1.1? It may help.

What is xubuntu Karmic box? I will try to update OpenOffice

My GNU/Linux distribution is the Ubuntu version delivered with the XFCE desktop manager. Karmic Koala is the latest version released a couple of weeks ago.

If those are real people's details I'd remove that file.

I've converted the file to .xls with OOo 3.1.1 on my xubuntu Karmic box, can someone with MS Excel check it?

Opens fine in Word 2007, but now I've tested that can a mod take those two files down as they appear to contain personal data.

Don't worry, I had removed the file at first sight and in fact, the list comes from public information (you can click the links, it points to people proposing massages). So I've put the file back online.

But I agree, once the files have been proved to be readable with MS Excel, better remove them.

(you can click the links, it points to people proposing massages). So I've put the file back online.

Good idea, I'm feeling a little stressed so could do with a massage