Problems with File Formatting and Document Display on Open Office Writer

[e-mail rm004e0578 <rm...@blueyonder.co.uk>]

Hello, I have been using OpenOffice Writer for a number of years and I have
recently has problems with the program.  A main concern is whenever i save a
document in Word 97/2000/XP format, the program tells me that the document has
been saved in the format I requested, but when I go to open the documents, they
are displayed as an unknown file type with the unknown file icon (the white box
with three squares).  Every time I save a document now, even previous documents
that have been saved as Word 97/00/XP documents, they are converted to unknown
file types every time I go back into OpenOffice.

I also had difficulty with the formatting of a Word document that I opened in
OpenOffice.  When I opened the file, the formatting had been thrown around and
text boxes were moved and had a strange red arrow in the right-had corner.  I
have never known of this problem before - could it be due to a virus?

Thanks

Best wishes,

Matt Mills

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Re: Problems with File Formatting and Document Display on Open Office Writer

[Brian Barker <b....@btinternet.com>]

At 15:35 19/07/2016 +0100, Matt Mills wrote:
>I have been using OpenOffice Writer for a number of years and I have 
>recently has problems with the program. A main concern is whenever i 
>save a document in Word 97/2000/XP format, the program tells me that 
>the document has been saved in the format I requested, but when I go 
>to open the documents, they are displayed as an unknown file type 
>with the unknown file icon (the white box with three squares). Every 
>time I save a document now, even previous documents that have been 
>saved as Word 97/00/XP documents, they are converted to unknown file 
>types every time I go back into OpenOffice.

You may well imagine that the icon you see outside OpenOffice - 
provided by your operating system - shows the format in which any 
document file has been saved. But this is not true. Instead, the 
choice of icon will be based on the application that your operating 
system would use to open the file by default if you double-click it. 
In most cases this depends only on the extension to the file name, 
not on any property of the document file itself.

So what is likely is that your saved files are indeed in your chosen 
format but that they lack the .doc extension to indicate this to your 
operating system. You can test this by starting OpenOffice first and 
then using File | Open ... (or the Open... button in the start 
screen) to browse to and open the files - which you should find works 
normally, as this does not rely on your operating system's default settings.

OpenOffice has a strange option in the Save As... dialogue box. Near 
the bottom, you will see an "Automatic file name extension" tick box. 
Has this become unticked? If it has, you will be saving documents in 
the correct format, but the file names will not be getting the proper 
extension. So a document will be called just "name" rather than 
"name.doc". If you replace the tick, it will stick for further saves.

You can deal with existing rogue files either by opening them as 
above and then saving them with the appropriate extension (once you 
have replaced the tick) or else by using your operating system's 
facilities to rename the files, adding the extension manually.

>I also had difficulty with the formatting of a Word document that I 
>opened in OpenOffice. When I opened the file, the formatting had 
>been thrown around and text boxes were moved and had a strange red 
>arrow in the right-had corner. I have never known of this problem 
>before - could it be due to a virus?

No. First, there will always be differences when you open documents 
in foreign formats or prepared by other application software. Indeed, 
there will be differences even without these changes if you have a 
different operating system, version of the application software, 
default printer, paper size, installed fonts, and so on. For best 
results, once you have formatted a document as you wish, save it in 
OpenOffice's native Open Document Format formats - .odt etc. - for 
later further use.

The red arrow just indicates that there is more text in the table 
cell than can be displayed at the current font, size, or other 
settings, I think. Enlarge the table cell or change the character 
formatting to see the rest of the contents.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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Re: Problems with File Formatting and Document Display on Open Office Writer

[Daniel Roma <ro...@gmail.com>]

Hello.

Your windows may be faulty, or dll corrupt.

in My Documents or Windows Explorer, right click the mouse on the
file, and choose default program as wtitter.
openoffice and microsoft office word recognize features, writer your
ways .: may have to make some changes in your document parater same
formatting as the word.my sister had a similar problem when trying to
open documents in Word, and for some reason the windows put the
writter  as the default program

when I open or create word documents the writer, always saved in the
word standard, never on writter pattern.
try opening the same document on another computer, with openoffice,
and see if you have the same problem. but it may be your windows with
some corrupt dll.

I have helped

2016-07-19 11:35 GMT-03:00 e-mail rm004e0578 <rm...@blueyonder.co.uk>:
> Hello, I have been using OpenOffice Writer for a number of years and I have
> recently has problems with the program.  A main concern is whenever i save a
> document in Word 97/2000/XP format, the program tells me that the document has
> been saved in the format I requested, but when I go to open the documents, they
> are displayed as an unknown file type with the unknown file icon (the white box
> with three squares).  Every time I save a document now, even previous documents
> that have been saved as Word 97/00/XP documents, they are converted to unknown
> file types every time I go back into OpenOffice.
>
> I also had difficulty with the formatting of a Word document that I opened in
> OpenOffice.  When I opened the file, the formatting had been thrown around and
> text boxes were moved and had a strange red arrow in the right-had corner.  I
> have never known of this problem before - could it be due to a virus?
>
> Thanks
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Matt Mills
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org
>

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