131 About Sharing OpenOffice.org Files with Other Applications

OpenOffice.org plays well with others! Specifically, and most important, OpenOffice.org reads and writes Microsoft Office files with ease. When saving your work in Writer, Calc, or Impress, the Save As dialog box always provides you with both OpenOffice.org-based file types as well as Microsoft Office file types. In addition, OpenOffice.org saves files in the StarOffice format, if you elect to do that, although the sheer number of Microsoft Office users around the world makes the sharing of Office data most critical.

See Also

132 Associating OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Files

133 Upgrade OpenOffice.org to a New Version

When you save a Writer, Calc, or Impress file, you can elect to save that file in a non- OpenOffice.org format to be read and edited in other programs.

In reality, it is Microsoft Office that is not compatible with OpenOffice.org! Microsoft Office offers no way to save files in OpenOffice.org's native file format. To convert an Office file to OpenOffice.org format, you must first open the Office file and then save the file after selecting an OpenOffice.org format from the Save as type list.

NOTE

Microsoft Office provides no native support for PDF files.

Another powerful OpenOffice.org feature is its capability to export documents directly into Adobe's PDF format. Your files are then available to be read on many different systems from all across the Internet. See 36 Save a Document as a PDF File for information on the PDF format.

When loading Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations into OpenOffice.org's programs, you may run into conversion problems.

For Microsoft Word documents, these features will not always convert in OpenOffice.org:

• AutoShapes

• Revision marks

• OLE objects

• Some form fields

• Indexes

• Tables, frames , and multicolumn formatting

• Hyperlinks and bookmarks

• WordArt graphics

• Animated characters and text

For Microsoft Excel worksheets, these features will not always convert in OpenOffice.org:

• AutoShapes

• OLE objects

• Some form fields

• Pivot tables

• New chart types

• Conditional formatting

• Some esoteric functions and formulas

NOTE

Not every feature in this list is always a problem. For example, many Writer users import Word multicolumn newsletters without any trouble. You cannot rely on 100%-accurate conversions in every case, however.

For Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, these features will not always convert in OpenOffice.org:

• AutoShapes

• Tab, line, and paragraph spacing

• Master background graphics

• Grouped objects

• Macros

• Some multimedia effects

You can assign file types to certain applications. If you have both Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org installed on the same computer, you probably want to use one more than the other but still keep both installed. 132 Associating OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Files explains how to select which program opens files related to it. For example, do you want Impress or PowerPoint to be the Windows default program that opens presentation files ending in the .ppt filename extension?

KEY TERM

Visual Basic for Applications ” Abbreviated as VBA and refers to the programming language used to write advanced applications with Microsoft Office.

In addition to these features, OpenOffice.org does not support Visual Basic for Applications . Some programming macros and codes work, and some do not. Expect a rather extensive conversion effort if you need to convert between VBA and OpenOffice.org's API.