Libre / Open office ODT to Microsoft DOC conversion help.

[leo_mancini]

Hi all,

Last night I spent over 4 hours completing my resume on Libre Office 3.4.4.
I have saved the document as a ODT file, and tried also saving it as a DOC file.
Within Libre Office, the document looks great (in my eyes at least), it is 3 pages length.
Earlier on today I tried opening the Libre office converted DOC file at Work with Microsoft Office.

For some reason, it is mixed up the spacing, and the bullet formatting is different.
Whilst I understand that Libre office warns that saving in an alternate format risks messing up with the format. This is crucial
that I keep the formatting as is so that it looks good for potential employers.

Does anyone know of a good ODT to Microsoft Word converter??

Alternatively I realise that I can save it as a PDF file though any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Garvan]

I understand there is no converter better than LibreOffice itself.

I recently read a feature on this issue in Linux Format magazine, and this is what I remember of their advice:

1. Make sure you have the latest version of LibreOffice
2. Make sure you have the free windows fonts installed in Linux, so the fonts will be exactly the same when you open the document in word.
3. Install a free DOCX viewer from Microsoft in Wine so you can preview your documents and make sure they are good.

or

4. Install a version of Word in wine.

I left the magazine in my office - I will bring it home tomorrow and review it again, to see if there is anything important to add.

Garvan

PS. The other important recommendation was to use Microsoft Web Apps to check and fix your documents formating before sharing it. This works well with Firefox and Chrome, but apparently not so well with other Linux browsers.

[bootedguy]

MS DOC and DOCX formats are propriatary, and you cannot expect a non-MS application to do a perfect job of converting. If you keep your ODT document fairly simple, without complicated layouts and formatting, the conversion will work fairly well. Don't expect to find an app that will convert an open format (ODT) to a closed format under all circumstances.

John

[axisofevil]

Sometimes!
Using the free converter at http://www.zamzar.com/ can give a better conversion than the builtin one in Libre Office.