open office odt files 31 October 2017 at 10:05PM in Techie Stuff 8 replies 870 views

JimArnold

like most sensible moneysavers I use Open Office and like most people the word processor by default is saves as odt files

I had need to attach a couple of these to a couple of emails to my local council - one came back that they couldn't read it and the other said that the IT dept had confirmed the file was corrupt.
I asked him to send the corrupt file back and low and behold it open in word reader on my android phone (needs an extension but its free)

so has anyone tried sending an odt file to local or national government ?

Robin9

Send as a pdf instead ?

debitcardmayhem

Save it as a Word 97 format or word 2007 format etc....

Keep_pedalling

It is safest to send as a PDF file, you won't get any screw ups with messed up formatting or displaced images that can happing when saving in Word formats.

You need to will need to use the Export as PDF which you will find under the File menu.

Frozen_up_north

A long time ago the Cabinet Office mandated that all Govt and local govt departments use open standards for documents. Sadly many of their IT departments only know about Microsoft and ignore mandatory requirements.

I have never had an issue with documents from Open Office, or Libre Office (the latest incarnation). The problem is at the council end, not the senders end.

SouthUKMan

Most organisations only use Microsoft Office. A Word document produces / expects a .docx file by default and not a .odt file. While some people are tech savvy and can find a way to open your document, I'll wager that 9 in 10 people wouldn't have a clue.

LibreOffice / OpenOffice are brilliant programmes considering they are free. Both can save files in .docx (or indeed the older .doc) formats with ease. You can also change the default setting so that every time you save a file it does so as a Microsoft Word file. Simple instructions here:

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-save-a-docx-file-in-open-office

I believe in the 'free' philosophy and use LibreOffice on one my computers. But I also recognise that the majority of the real world uses Microsoft Office and so for ease I only save files in .docx format.

Neil49

Just to let you know that Open Office is not now being kept up to date due to lack of resource (and finance) and it is recommended that users switch to Libre Office.

As mentioned above, it makes sense to set the Save As default to .docx format.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

giraffe69

like most sensible moneysavers I use Open Office

I'm not at all sure this is true.

AndyPix

I thought most sensible moneysavers obtained MSOffice very very cheaply