Ubuntu

documents conversion questions

Asked by zm1

Q1. I have some Microsoft Word documents and wanted to convert them into the odf format by selecting File->Wizards->Documents Converter. The Documents Converter windows opens but it is small and its contents are not fully displayed. I tried to drag the borders of the window with the mouse in order to make it larger for displaying its full contents but it does not work. I have been using the Polish setting of my Ubuntu 7.10. Is that a problem with my system or a bag that needs to be alleviated?

Q2. I have created an odm document and want to convert it into the Microsoft Widows format in order to share the file with somoene elese. How to do this?

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Harvey Muller
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Harvey Muller (hlmuller) said : 		#1

zm1,

Q1: See the convertor at this address: http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/index.jsp

Q2: I'm not familiar with the ODM extension. But at a minimum you could try to print it to PDF, and then share it that way.

Hope this helps,

Harvey

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zm1 (zm-poczta) said : 		#2

Harvey,

thank you for a quick response. Here are my comments:

Q1: I use my company laptop on that I produce my .doc documents. I have not got sufficient administrator rights on that machine and therefore I am not able to install the plug-in you have suggested. For this reason I have been looking for a relevant utility in the Open Office Writer. My impression is that selecting File->Wizards->Documents Converter gives access to such an utility. However as I have mentioned in the beginning, a Documents Converter window opens upon selecting it but it is very small and its contents are not fully displayed. And it is not possible to drag its borders with the mouse to enlarge it to see the full contents where I possibly could perform the anticipated action to convert my .doc document to the odf format. That is why I would rather insist on exploring the File->Wizards->Documents Converter utility or some other possibility to convert .doc documents into the odf format within the Open Office Writer itself.

Q2: Printing to a PDF document seems to be a good solution. Do you think it is also possible to print/convert my odf document to an .rtf one from within the Open Office Writer?

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Best Harvey Muller (hlmuller) said : 		#3

zm1,

Q1: I've not used the document convertor wizard before, but I see what you mean. It appears to have a bug. This is another method you can use:

    a. Open the MS Office Word Document in OpenOffice
    b. Save the file in open document format (*.odt)

The document will probably need a little tweaking in OpenOffice to get it to look exactly the same. MS Excel documents convert a little cleaner using this method. The Sun plugin I pointed to earlier does a better job, but I understand that is not an option for you.

Q2: Your two main options under the File menu are "Export to PDF", and "Save As". The "Save As" option provides you many different formats which includes saving back to MS Office formats and also rtf.

Something else that may be of help to you: http://pl.openoffice.org/

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zm1 (zm-poczta) said : 		#4

Harvey,

your reply has solved my both questions. Thank you for your support. I would like to report the problem with the convertor wizard somewhere on Ubuntu pages, though.
How can I do that?

zm1

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Harvey Muller (hlmuller) said : 		#5

If you want to originate the bug report with Ubuntu, then you start at:

    http://launchpad.net

You'll have to create an account first and then create the bug report. But it looks the bug has already been created:

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/compiz/+bug/149586

If you want to originate a bug directly with OpenOffice, then you would start here:

    http://qa.openoffice.org/issue_handling/pre_submission.html

But like I said previously, it looks like this specific bug has already been reported and is in the process of being resolved.

Best regards,

Harvey

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zm1 (zm-poczta) said : 		#6

I have decided not to file this bug since there are already relevant bugs reported as you say. Thank you once again for your support.

Best regards,
zm1