Like it or not, one of the most important features of any Microsoft Office alternative is being able to read Microsoft Office files. With the recently released OpenOffice 3.0 Beta adding support for importing Office 2007 (AKA OOXML, AKA .docx) files, I decided to test how it would handle files created in Microsoft Office 2007 saved in both .doc (the older version) and .docx (Microsoft’s new format.)

To do the test, I used three different files, one with basic formatting (highlighting, font size, bold, italics, underline, etc.), one with changes tracked, and one with charts and pictures and that sort of thing. Each file was also saved both in .doc and .docx. Overall, particularly for a beta, I was very impressed with how OpenOffice handled the files. As you might expect, there are really no deal-breakers on the .doc side. On the .docx side, there are, unfortunately, some, but these will, hopefully, be resolved soon. (Keep in mind, this is still a beta version.)

Problems I noticed with .doc (older, but still the most common) files:

• Formatting changes did not appear to import correctly. For example, if you are tracking changes in Office and you make a piece of text bold, the text will be bold in OpenOffice, but there will be no indication that that is a change.
• Bullets do not always display correctly. For example, in Office there might be a little check mark for a bullet, but in OpenOffice that check mark might be replaced by a box.

Problems I noticed in .docx (newer, but not widely adopted yet) files:

• Text does not always wrap to the next line at the same point. For example, if a line ended with the word “cat” in Office, it might end with a different word in OpenOffice.
• Changes are not correctly imported. For example, if you had changes tracked in Office, they do not show up in OpenOffice. Comments are there, but there are weirdly inserted into the body of the document and totally mess up the formatting. Hopefully this is just a bug in the beta.
• Word Art, charts, and elements of shapes do not work correctly/at all. For example, Word Art, shapes, charts, and other similar objects may not show up correctly or at all in OpenOffice.
• Bullets do not always display correctly. See above.

Yes, there are still some issues, particularly in the .docx format, but these may well be resolved before even 3.0 is shipped. To put things in perspective, I will be following this up with a look at how Office handles ODF files. Oh wait, I guess I will have to wait until 2009 to do that. At least they are doing it.