Open Office and file formats?

Muppet81

Have decided to not bother with MS Office on my new laptop but to use Open Office.org instead.

I have some Excel files which i still use and these do open in Open office so that is great.

Just a bit confused about file formats.

Sometimes when I open an Excel file it asks me what format I want to save it in.

Please could someone tell me, in VERYsimple terms, what file format I should save all my old and any new Word or Excel doc in when i make changes to them.

I do use a computer in a charity shop I work in and sometimes take Excel sheet down there to work on them but that is also in Open office.

Just want to be absolutely sure that whatever i do, I retain all the data and formula and the ability to change them as needed.

Thanks for any advice and tips you can give me

daveys_2

Save your Excel Spreadsheets in a .xls format

Save your Word docs in a .doc format.

In both cases there is also a long-winded explination which goes along the lines of MS Windows, XP, Vista (and a few other examples)

I use OO at home, if you want more info or detail, let me know and I'll copy/paste some screen shots

Muppet81

daveys wrote: »

Save your Excel Spreadsheets in a .xls format

Save your Word docs in a .doc format.

In both cases there is also a long-winded explination which goes along the lines of MS Windows, XP, Vista (and a few other examples)

I use OO at home, if you want more info or detail, let me know and I'll copy/paste some screen shots

That would be great thanks.

I do see the option of saving in .odf format and wonder what that is. Think it stands for open Desk Format but do not understand the implications

Do I just let OO do its own thing with new docs created and saved within it? What format does it do by default?

macman

By default it saves in the OO .odf format. If you change the defaults in Preferences then it will always save in .doc/.xls MS Office formats if that is what you set it to.

daveys_2

Muppet81 wrote: »

That would be great thanks.

Sorry, forgot to hit the subscribe button, I'll sort some screen grbs for you

Muppet81

daveys wrote: »

Sorry, forgot to hit the subscribe button, I'll sort some screen grbs for you

That would be very useful. Thank you :A

John_Gray

You might want to think about using LibreOffice rather than the possibly-becoming-obsolete Open Office...

Muppet81

John_Gray wrote: »

You might want to think about using LibreOffice rather than the possibly-becoming-obsolete Open Office...

Will take a look. Have not heard of LibreOffice. If OO becoemes obsolete will it cease to work? Does LO work in a similar way and are its files useable in MS Office applications?

spud17

Muppet81 wrote: »

Will take a look. Have not heard of LibreOffice. If OO becoemes obsolete will it cease to work? Does LO work in a similar way and are its files useable in MS Office applications?

In a nutshell, the OO employees/developers became disillusioned with the direction that Sun (parent company) wanted them to take.
They bailed out and started LibreOffice, leaving OO to presumably stagnate.
LO files work exactly the same as OO.
If it's a newish install, I'd dump OO and go with LO from the outset.

You have looked at John Grays links?

debitcardmayhem

spud17 wrote: »

In a nutshell, the OO employees/developers became disillusioned with the direction that Sun (parent company) wanted them to take.
They bailed out and started LibreOffice, leaving OO to presumably stagnate.
LO files work exactly the same as OO.
If it's a newish install, I'd dump OO and go with LO from the outset.

You have looked at John Grays links?

Shurely some mishtake (ed) that would be [STRIKE]Oracle[/STRIKE] Orrible

Apologies mister Hislop

macman

Muppet81 wrote: »

Will take a look. Have not heard of LibreOffice. If OO becoemes obsolete will it cease to work? Does LO work in a similar way and are its files useable in MS Office applications?

It will still work but won't be updated. LO files can be read by Word/Excel perfectly well as log as you save them appropriately.