Re: [libreoffice-users] How to edit MS doc(x) files without breaking it for MS?

On 11/20/2012 10:21 AM, M Henri Day wrote:
> 2012/11/19 Paolo Debortoli <paolo_debortoli@yahoo.com>
>
> > hi all.  i had the same problem receving via email from an office .docx
> > files.  when I try to import the file in libreoffice it crashes and does
> > not allow to import in any way.  the solution I found is to open such file
> > with gwoffice (google office app, you need a google account connected to
> > use it) and save it in odt format always via gwoffice  (then it is exactly
> > in lo format).  I think that opening such files shouldn't  be very
> > difficult  (I am not a programmer at all).
> >
> > paolo
> I must say I find this odd, as I've not experienced similar problems in
> Writer. To test, I booted from my usual Ubuntu 12.04 into Windows 7 and
> created two .docx documents in MS Office Word 2010 (Swedish version), one
> the first strophe of a Swedish poem, the other a line from Thomas
> Paine's *Common
> Sense*. I had no problem opening either one in LibreOffice (Swedish Version
> 3.6.3.2 (Build ID: 58f22d5)) ; to test further I sent the latter as an
> attachment to a Gmail message to a friend in India who has an
> English-language version of LibreOffice (3.5.4.2 Build ID: 350m1(Build:2)).
> He also had no trouble in opening and reading the attachment. Both these
> two documents were, of course, extremely simple, no embedded hyperlinks or
> tables, etc, but for documents of this nature I am unable to reproduce any
> difficulties in opening .docx files in recent versions of LibreOffice. From
> what I understand, however, things can become more complicated when links
> or tables are embedded in documents or when other LibreOffice functions,
> like Calc or Impress are used....
>
> Henri
I has a lady send me a .docx file of a "poster" that was very complex.  
It would have been easier for it to have been created with Publisher, 
CorelDraw, Inkscsape, or other non-wordprocessor, but she used Word and 
.docx.  It did not load up properly with 3.5.4 or was it 3.5.5.  I told 
her that the poster should have been sent as a PDF and then she agreed, 
and resent it out to everyone as a PDF file. That is when I saw how 
complex it was. I would not have tried anything like that in any 
wordprocessorlet alone saved it in .docx.

Now that MSO 2013's .docx format will not be completely compatible with 
the 2010 or 2007 versions of that format, FOSS users will have as much 
problems as users of earlier version of MSO.  Also, I have read that if 
you want to get all of the package to work correctly, you have to use 
MSO2013 with Win8.  It was designed to work with Win8 and seems not to 
work completelywith Win7.  I also read somewhere that you should not 
even try to use it on Vista or XP, since the testers had big problems 
trying to install the 2013 beta on those earilier OSs.

I really think MSO changes the specifications for the OOXML formats so 
you are "required" to upgrade to the newest version of MSO to get the 
format to work properly.  Forced upgrading as a way to getmore money 
from their users is as bad as their new "forced" "software rental" 
policies/penalties on the users.  Oh well, I do digress.

So, the best solution is to try to get users to use the non-"OOXML" 
formats so any version of MSO 2000-2013 can use the files properly. Then 
there will be no problems with and FOSS office package users as well.



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