Tag: OpenOffice.org

Easy Online File Conversion

I’m not big on sending my files over the internet to random websites – but the boys over at Media Convert have done a sterling job to create a 1-stop file conversion site.

I was struggling to find a program that would convert an OpenOffice Draw file (.odg) into something easily read on Windows. Eventually I settled on converting it to a PNG.

The process was painless. Upload the file, wait a few moments, and then download the converion.

The site even does music and video formats, as well as a raft of others.

Rock on.

Open docx files in OpenOffice on Ubuntu

I’ve been using Office 2007 quite happily for some time now. But the niggles are starting to hit me.

One of the main issues is the new .docx format not being supported across the board yet. And with me being a sucker for all things new, I have to make a point of saving an alternate version to open in OpenOffice.

Until now.

I found this little nugget on the Ubuntu forums to install the Novell converter in Ubuntu:

1) Download the file odf-converter-1.0.0-5.i586.rpm from http://download.novell.com/SummaryFree.jsp?buildid=ESrjfdE4U58~

2) Use alien to convert it to a Slackware tgz file

<code>alien -ct odf-converter-1.0.0-5.i586.rpm</code>

3) Unpack the slackware tgz file

<code>tar xzf odf-converter-1.0.0.tgz</code>

4) Copy three files into your OpenOffice.org directories — note that the usr that you’re copying from is a directory that was inside the tgz file (3 lines here)

<code>sudo cp usr/lib/ooo-2.0/program/OdfConverter /usr/lib/openoffice/program/</code>
<code>sudo cp usr/lib/ooo-2.0/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Filter/MOOXFilter_cpp.xcu /usr/lib/openoffice/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Filter/</code>
<code>sudo cp usr/lib/ooo-2.0/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Types/MOOXTypeDetection.xcu /usr/lib/openoffice/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Types/</code>

Once I restarted OpenOffice, I found that it could import basic docx files quite happily.

This worked nicely for me in Feisty Fawn – although it’s a good idea to make sure that OpenOffice is up-to-date.

Microsoft begin to make good on open formats

Release 1 of the OpenXML Translator for Microsoft Word is now available through Sourceforge.

This tool allows MS Word users to open files saved in OpenOffice Write format (.ODF), make modifications and save the files.

Microsoft is due to release this through its website shortly, and apparently there will be Impress and Calc converters, too.

For people who are considering using OpenOffice, or use both OO and MS Office, this is definitely good news.

The tool will work in both Word 2003 and Word 2007.