Re: Fw: [libreoffice-users] Regression: LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 gives error "Read Error: Not a winword97 file" wen opening some Word 97 files.

Hi :)  
A bug-report is a good plan.  

When i had a quick look into NeoOffice a couple of years ago it was based on OpenOffice.org 
pre-the-fork.  I don't know if they have re-based on LO in the last couple of years.  Either way it 
uses ODF.  Apache OpenOffice are hoping to incorporate all the accessibility stuff from IBM's Lotus 
Symphony fairly quickly even though it's all java-based.  Again, both use ODF.  

Doc format is good at the moment but it's owned by MS and it's in their best interest to try to 
stop it from being used for new documents and the sooner they can do that the better for them.  
They need to push everyone into using their newer format (which changes at each release of their 
Suite) so that people are forced into renting the latest MS Office suite as soon as possible.  

Right now is a difficult time to start thinking about long-term storage.  Maybe in a year or 2 
things will become clearer
1.  the MS format may settle down although that seems unlikely 
2.  ODF may become much more widely used
Of course the Rtf format that was being widely promoted a few years ago has turned out to be a bit 
of a nightmare and is another format owned by MS.  Apparently MS made the same promises for Rtf 
that they currently make for DocX but fell so far short of their promises about interoperability 
and compatibility that MS allegedly lost court cases about it.  

Doc is a good format for sharing documents and working with others at the moment but it might not a 
good one for long-term storage.  ODF seems to be rapidly increasing in popularity.  It was a bit of 
a surprise that Apple choose to create their own format!  

So, i think your plan to store documents in 2 formats is a good plan.  Pdf is not easily editable 
but at least it looks the same on different types of machines.  
Regards from
Tom :)  



--- On Sun, 25/11/12, Declan Moriarty <declan_moriarty@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

From: Declan Moriarty <declan_moriarty@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: [libreoffice-users] Regression: LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 gives error "Read Error: Not a 
winword97 file" wen opening some Word 97 files.
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>
Date: Sunday, 25 November, 2012, 22:04

Tom,

I will do a bug report about this.  One reason I have been converting to .doc is that I had 
originally had Word filter for Ami Pro documents that I had a lot of and needed to convert them.  I 
found out that the Ami Pro filter from Microsoft didn't do graphics.  I had to get them converted 
by other means.  I also have Windows Write documents that again were converted to Word format.  So 
it seemed natural to convert everything to Word.

I then started to convert to ODF and PDF because it was a good idea to hedge ones bets.  I then 
discovered that Apple iWork Pages doesn't read ODF files!  This meant that Word .doc files become 
suddenly more relevant.  Pages is the only Word processor other than TextEdit on the Mac that 
tracks the cursor when zoomed using Mac OS X zoom feature in Lion.  LibreOffice doesn't do it.  So 
I will be moving to Pages once all this conversion and archiving is over.  Google Docs used to 
track the cursor but stopped doing it when they updated their system.  MS Word for the mac doesn't 
track the cursor in Lion and won't do it ever.  Microsoft have said that Office for mac isn't 
accessible and won't be accessible.  If you want accessible office buy a Windows PC!  NeoOffice is 
paid for and worse you have to give a "Donation" before you download it.  Because it is "Donation" 
ware there is no comeback if things go wrong.  Also NeoOffice doesn't work with
 VoiceOver that I don't use, but I refuse to support software that won't work with it and whose 
developers won't be making NeoOffice work with VoiceOver.  Also NeoOffice doesn't track the cursor.
 
Declan Moriarty

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>; Declan Moriarty 
<declan_moriarty@yahoo.co.uk> 
Sent: Sunday, 25 November 2012, 21:41
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Regression: LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 gives error "Read Error: Not a 
winword97 file" wen opening some Word 97 files.
 
Hi :)
ODF is used by a wide variety of programs;  Google docs, Caligra/KOffice, AbiWord = basically all 
of them except MS Office and even MS Office is starting to offer the option.  It's not 'just' AOO 
and LO.  So the format should be around for a fair while.  

That said it does make sense to have a back-up in a different format and Pdf displays the same on 
all different platforms so it might even be useful.  

It might be good to post a bug-report about it.  Doc is usually a good format for sharing and 
collaborating with other people but it is a proprietary format and as such has always been subject 
to the slightest whims of a single 3rd party profit-making company.
Regards from
Tom :)  


--- On Sun, 25/11/12, Declan Moriarty <declan_moriarty@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

From: Declan Moriarty <declan_moriarty@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Regression: LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 gives error "Read Error: Not a 
winword97 file" wen opening some Word 97 files.
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>
Date: Sunday, 25 November, 2012, 19:49

I have been converting various documents to MS Word XP and ODF format from floppy disks.  I am 
going through the directories to check to see if the documents have been converted properly before 
finally archiving the converted documents to CD/DVD.  The was a group of Word 97 documents that I 
had converted a year ago that I am now looking at.  I was shocked that some of these Word 97 
documents won't now open in LibreOffice.  I was running LibreOffice 3.5.6.2.  I upgraded to 
LibreOffice 3.6.3. with no effect, it still doesn't open these Word 97 files.  Note that the 
majority of the files open.  These are simple text files with no graphics or tables in them.  The 
files that fail have no pattern to them.

I re-installed Open Office 3.2.1 and they will open with that.  I checked other older versions of 
LibO and found that LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 does NOT open the files.

There are a few files like this that won't open.  I am currently going through the directories and 
re-saving any that don't work with the word "re-saved" in the filename keeping the original Word 97 
file so I can keep the date.  There are 3 files I have done this too but I know there are more.

Should I start a new bug for this?

This doesn't feel nice to know that the major free office suite has problems opening Word 97 files. 
 Luckily I have converted these to ODF files but I also want to convert them to PDF files just in 
case ODF stops being used.

I am using LibreOffice on Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.  These problem files will open in TextEdit. 
 I am thinking of using iWork Pages because it tracks properly in Lion that I will upgrade to once 
I have sorted out all these conversions.  Hopefully since TextEdit can open these "Problem" Word 97 
files Pages will too.

 
Declan Moriarty
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