Do OpenOffice Users Save In Microsoft Format?

superglaze writes "Looking through an article on the smartphone office suite Quickoffice, I noted a claim by a company executive that OpenOffice users usually save their documents in a Microsoft format, e.g. .doc. Hence the company has no plans to support .odf. I guess I can see the rationale for this — it helps if you're sending a document to an MS-using company — but what's this community's general experience of saving in .odf vs. .doc format?"

ODF for me, DOC for thee

[Craig Maloney (1104)]

I save my items internally in ODF format, but if I have to send something to another person without OO.o, I need to save it in .doc format. Honestly, if someone could convince the world that ODF is an acceptable format, I'd love to save the step.

Re:ODF for me, DOC for thee

[Erioll (229536)]

I have my "editable" one in the native format, and just do a "save as" for .doc if I'm sending it to someone. Then unfortunately I need to go re-open my actual .odf file, which is a pain.

Honestly, what I'd like (and might be available, I haven't looked) is the option to automatically save in multiple formats whenever you push the save key. If it automatically "worked" in .odf, but was always exporting along the way to both .doc and .pdf, that'd be ideal for me.

And they are the reason

[John Jamieson (890438)]

It is software companies like this that force us to save in MS formats!

.DOC

[GWLlosa (800011)]

I have and use OpenOffice, but frequently wind up writing stuff that I'm going to want to send to a friend or allow him to grab off my share or whatnot. Rather than dick around with the whole format thing, its easier to just use .doc. Saves time and hassle.

We used to.

[Lumpy (12016)]

Internally we used to default all OO.o installs to save as MSFT formats. we changed that recently.

We changed all internal to OO.o formats and all documents that exit the company must be sent as pdf. we did this for 3 reasons. compatability, security, and simplicity.

compatable. even a solaris machine can display a pdf. simplicity. PDF is actually the most universal document format no matter what Microsoft says.

Security. We had a problem with a salesperson that sent a contract to a client. the client sent it back and accepted it. The salesperson used the file sent back by the customer as the legal document and did not check it for changes. we got SCREWED because the asshole client changed several things silently in their favor.

If we sent them a PDF, they cant play that game as all contracts have to be sent to legal for acceptance as the oridional document format. this solved this problem.

Re:We used to.

[mungewell (149275)]

err... it's still possible to alter a PDF document.

You'd need to put in place a proceedure that checks and confirms the MD5Sum or imposes digital signatures.
Munge.

Only for sharing documents

[56 (527333)]

I work at a tech desk at a university library and see a significant number of people who use open office, mainly Mac users. All of the people who have come to the desk with open office issues save in .odf. Their problem is that they want to print at the library, which requires the use of one of our information commons computers and therefore Word. So I have to show them how to save their documents as .doc files in order to load them in Word. None of them knew how to save as a .doc file and only one of them was even aware that open office saved as .odf.

Re:Only for sharing documents

[MickLinux (579158)]

It seems to me that your library should install open office on those computers, as well. It goes against the spirit of anti-trust legislation to have public utilities (such as a university library) forcing people into a specific company's product in order to get full print capability. That is typically going to be the case, as well, because since .doc is a closed format, not everything transfers over correctly.

Now, on the other side of the coin may be the fact that Microsoft has provided the library with computers for free, under the contract that no openoffice gets installed on them. Fine, and well -- then set up one computer which the library has purchased free and clear, that sends the .odfs to the print server.

If the contract specifies no open-office anywhere, at all, then I'd say that the users should be informed of that fact, and be given the opportunity to sign up on a list of complainants, for the purpose of a university-wide lawsuit against Microsoft.

Need viewer application + plugin

[HalAtWork (926717)]

What we need is a small portable efficient ODF viewer that can be used as a stand-alone app, as well as a browser plugin, just to render and view + print ODF files. That way people won't have to have large applications just to print these files.

Also, it seems to me though that (when sharing) OpenOffice users might not save in .odf or .doc format as much as they would PDF format, actually.

Re:Neither....PDF!

[Marcion (876801)]

I also do PDF quite bit, it also makes you look a bit more professional, as PDFs have a nice snobby image.

However, my main format, especially when collaborating is .txt. The best supported open format in the history of computing. Plain Text forever!

Don't give in!

[epiphani (254981)]

Interchangeability is important. The .doc and other formats replaced WordPerfect and .rtf standards as de facto interchange formats.

I save in .odf, and when I need to distribute documents, I export the docs to PDF. They're clean and easy to read, and the export is very accurate. PDF is also basically universally supported.

The MS formats are so particular that the given version of office that people are using will maul my document. OO exports to PDF well, I dont need to check on it.

Re:Don't give in!

[VGPowerlord (621254)]

PDF is basically universally supported... for reading.

If you need to exchange documents with someone that needs to edit them, PDF is not an option.

Re:Don't give in!

[julesh (229690)]

If you need to exchange documents with someone that needs to edit them, PDF is not an option.

How common is this, really? I don't recall any occasion when I've expected somebody from outside my company to edit a document that I started. And inside the company, we've standardized on OO.o, so it doesn't matter which format we use. Which means we use .odt, because (a) the files are smaller and (b) it's easier to automatically process them.

Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt.

[seanellis (302682)]

I save ODF locally, PDF if someone else needs to print it, RTF if I need to send it to someone to edit, DOC if I need hell to freeze over.

(OT: Has everyone seen the new Open Rights Group T-shirts?)

Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt.

[rwven (663186)]

I'm pretty close to the same. I only use ODF stuff locally, but if someone else needs it that I know is using MSO, i save the document as a .doc. I don't see the .doc format as somehow evil, i just like ODF much better for obvious reasons. At the end of the day, .doc still gets the job done.

Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt.

[Skevin (16048)]

I use .odf when I'm feeling vindictive. Sometimes, a company will send me an email, whose entire body is otherwise stored in a .doc file, when it could have otherwise fit in just the regular body. I re-save the document as an .odf, make my changes or answer their questions, and then send it back to them.

S.

Re:Count at least ONE who doesnt.

[jimicus (737525)]

From personal experience, most people pay so little attention to email you send them that it wouldn't matter too much if you were able to send an email that magically turned their computer into a dancing ferret wearing top hat and tails, they wouldn't open it anyway.

Not unless the subject line was britney_spears_naked, anyway.

Re:Count Two

[G Fab (1142219)]

pretty sure you're full of it, man. IF you already had office paid for, why would you want openoffice? I think openoffice is excellent, but when I gave up on Office 2007, I installed Office 2003.

If some moron told me to install an entire office program (A sluggish one that cloned the one I already have, at that), I would email his boss and ask for the correct file format. It's common sense. IF you abuse your position to have people install redundant software, you probably won't be in that position for very long. It's like sending your files in Spanish. .doc is the format of business.

Microsoft has a stranglehold, but it's on a dinosaur. Software like this should not be locally installed, it should be online so you can easily collaborate. Beating Microsoft by copying them is silly because they will always be a step ahead.

Re:Count Two

[DaedalusHKX (660194)]

I've done some IT over the years along with other things.

I don't see how having paid for something that has drawbacks can actually cost me a damn thing. I took all the Office disks that my old man bought during my stay "away from the company" back to Staples Office Store, raised hell with the local management that I did NOT accept the licenses, and got back a good bit of cash. Do I run office? Why would I? The entire office runs Gentoo, BSD (various flavors) and one rig of Windows XP on a tripple boot arch.

Why would I pay for office again??

For the record, I've been messing with Open Office AND KOffice.

Both are nice, and neither in windows, nor linux are either worse than MSOffice.

As I do little business that can't be communicated in plaintext, PDF or webformat, I find that distributing my app to the net would result in forcing my clients to be logged in while in the field. Frankly I'd rather have them out there with a notepad, later transcribing data, than spending all their time connected.

Frankly, my best notes were actually done on napkins with a few friends at a late night coffee shop chat. I've scanned and printed a few to post script over the years. (Ghost script, if you would.)

Quite fun to mess with, and quite useful. Helps to NOT pay 5k for something that the IT shop doesn't even get a good markup from.

Re:Count Two

[yarbelk (913594)]

Good thing I'm a physicist, the format for journals is LaTeX.

Re:Count Two

[xSauronx (608805)]

Good thing Im unemployed and don't have to deal with silly things like "communicating with humans"

Re:Count Two

[afroborg (677708)]

And don't you guys use GIS (if you're civil) or CAD? What are you communicating by .pdf? General work details, personnel stuff, etc?

Nope. Generally all CAD drawings get converted to PDF for the masses. Adobe reader (or Foxit or whatever) starts way quicker than most CAD programs, and it doesn't have the massive cost associated with everyone in the office having AutoCAD installed. Generally only a couple of people in the office actually do CAD, the rest of us just mark up drawings in red pen... Honestly, I've got way better things to do than piss around with CAD software all day anyway. Thats what CADdies are for.

Note that at our business the same goes for mechanical CAD drawings, schematics, specs (generated in word or excel), or any other drawings (visio etc). They all get stored on the server as PDF + the original file, so it can be edited, and it can also be viewed by everyone.

Re:Count Two

[Zonk (troll) (1026140)]

You should advocate installing Sun's ODF Plugin [sun.com] for MS Office. It works quite well, as is free (as in beer).

Users are lazy

[Darth Muffin (781947)]

My users at least are lazy. They'll just save it in whatever format the software defaults to. They don't know or care about different document formats, they just know they "do this to open a document", "do that to save it", etc. Windows explorer defaults to hiding document extensions, so why should they even bother learning? Default it to save to MS office format and you'll save headaches since it will "just work" when they email it to someone.

Re:I save in ODF

[Hassman (320786)]

Translation:

I'm a dick that likes to slow down the business process and make others install redundant software (if they are even allowed to) that both costs time and money, but I don't care because it makes me feel important.