Comments on: Make sure Word, OpenOffice.org Writer play well together

With a few settings tweaks and cautious formatting, you can keep from losing features when moving files between the two word processors.

[jscott418]

This is the problem with software these days. Nothing is compatible with other similar software. It is why you have to use the most popular software in order to have as much compatibility as possible. I have this problem with Apple's iWorks. Pages is a nice word processor but send that document to a person with Office or Open Office and see what happens. Trouble is many Office documents can be opened by Pages. I really don't see why at least being able to view a document is such a big deal. Does this not make a product more user friendly. This problem goes way beyond word documents too. The internet is filled with video player,s, audio player's, PDF files, My computer is full of plugins and viewers so I can enjoy the internet. Is all this really needed?

[rcrusoe]

What we need is a setting in MS Office to change the default save to Open Document Format.

Microsoft's recent patch that blocked older versions of their standard formats (xls, doc, etc) shows that MS formats are not a safe choice for important data.

[gerrrg]

...or...

what if everyone switched to open office and saved hundreds of dollars per person?

[Andrew.Z]

You can also install the Microsoft fonts for OpenOffice.org (even in Linux).
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/01/calibri-linux-vista-fonts-download.html <-- new fonts
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ <-- old fonts

[zae3Ph]

This article is a false choice fallacy.

The way to distribute office files is to give people *both* formats, Writer/Calc and Word/Excel, together in a 7-zip archive. Not huge files sure, but anything average size or smaller. This is a non-threatening, open invitation for recipients to pick the format they like best.

They will suddenly realize there is an alternative. An amazing number of office workers don't know. Toss in a plain text README with formats OOo supports. This needs to spread around, not the horrible 'everybody uses Word' mantra.

It's possible to evangelize open formats without offense or forcing people into your scheme of things. Or suffering theirs.

And by inviting people with MS Office to install OOo, they have a comparison of both packages right on their box.

If you're desperately worried about layout, throw in that PDF export, too.

Yeah it's a slightly bigger blob, but most people will appreciate a freebie like Open Office, so will not mind. Might even say thanks.

[Melvin_01]

I'm 100% with jscott418. I believe that similar programs should be compatible with each oher. We can't enjoy the whole internet because of this ridicolous problem. Oh! you need quicktime to watch this video, or you need WMP to be able to watch this other video or preview this or that song. What is this man? I just want to watch or listen a 30 preview of a song, why this companies make us download 30+ Mb files and then install them in our computers? That takes a whole eternity!

That makes me re-think and say, we, the consumer are nothing for these big companies. They only think about money and that's it. Why in the world Microsoft blocked the old formats in Office 07? Were are we, the consumer? Do they even think about us? NO!

We're nothing but numbres for them.