Microsoft Office 2007 uses a new standard to save documents. You might have noticed that the documents saved are no longer named document.doc but document.docx. While this is not per se a problem for users with Office 2007 it is a major one for everyone else.
Microsoft released a compatibility patch for older Office versions which adds the functionality to those products but those who rely on Open Office for instance are facing a huge problem. Because, at the moment, Open Office does not support the docx format at all. If you open it you will only see lots of unreadable garbage.
Users have a few possibilities though. They can use the updated Word Viewer from the Microsoft website and use it to open the docx document. This document can then be copied and pasted into Open Office.
Another possibility would be to use the free online service called docx converter which converts docx documents into doc format readable by Open Office.
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I couldn’t get it to work myself, but Novell created a plugin for OpenOffice which provides support for opening and saving docx files.
http://download.novell.com/SummaryFree.jsp?buildid=ESrjfdE4U58~
OpenOffice is due to fully support it without plugins by version 2.4 I think.
Another option for users of MS Word 2007 to skirt this issue might be to simply this to thier copy of MS Word 2007.
- Open Word 2007.
- Go to WORD OPTIONS (under the MS Office Symbol in the upper left corner).
- Click on SAVE in the left-hand column.
- Select: Save Documents > Save Files in this Format
- “Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)”
By doing this all MS Word 2007 files will now open and save in *.doc format. SO you can go back and forth b/t Word 2007 and Open Office easily.
Hope this helps.
Users (Mac and P.C.) that do not own Microsoft Office and use other applications (such as Open Office), or users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office that are not covered by Microsoft compatibility pack, but still want covert, open and use Word 2007 DOCX or Excel 2007 XLSX files on their own computer, can do so with “docxconverter 2.0″. See: http://www.panergy-software.com/products/docxconverter/features.html
I’m running the OO 2.1 Novell Edition, Build 1007-06-04, and it reads/writes .docx with no trouble.
It’s at
http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=ESNg0tedRGs~
(free account required to access the files)
The Novell package odfconverter-1.0.0-2.oxt is just a zip file. For Windows users: extract the contents, copy the dlls to system32, use the executable. Less than seamless, but it works.
syntax:
odfconverter.exe /DOCX2ODT /I -iputfile.docx- /O -outputfile.odf-
Write a batch!
Something like
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\docx_auto_file\shell\open\command]
@=”\”C:\\yourpath\\odfconverter.exe\” /DOCX2ODT /I \”%1\” /O output.odf”
works too.
There’s also a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats on Microsoft’s site, at the following URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en
Thanks that helped us!
open office 3.0 beta opens them fine
OpenOffice 2.4 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron opens the format fine, much to my surprise. On a side note, I’m not sure how you’re detecting the client to give your browser warning, but I can be absolutely certain that I am *not* using Internet Explorer given that my desktop is Linux…
the online docx converter (http://www.docx-converter.com) I found doesn’t just convert to doc. It can straight away convert to openoffice.
Or use http://www.docx2doc.com to convert to older doc format or even pdfs or odt
Why not use buzzword.com it reads docx, and has BY FAR the best usability and interface, and since it’s flash, it’s cross browser and platform. Once open, you can save it again to another format.
Most of these suggestions are useless. They either are links to non-functional pages, to a rigged web site, or to an ad for another useless product. One free utility that does work is docx2rtf. We’d all be better served if Microsoft would simply use document formats that are more universal.
Not sure whether Open Office 3 is better than Oxgen Office Professional 2.4? Any comments
Or just use Open Office v3.1 : )
http://www.openoffice.org/