How Does OpenOffice 3.0 Beta Handle Microsoft Office Files?
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.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:21 am
you should really report those bugs are see if they have been reported.
also not having the same fonts messes up lots of things.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:07 am
The bullet issue also shows when importing MS Office 2003 .doc files.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Hussam - You mean Office 2007 .docx? Thanks. Corrected.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Please file your findings as separate bug reports. That’s exactly what a beta is for, after all
This is especially important since a lot of people in the community do not have MS Office themselves. So I guess these kind of reports are not that often.
Good to read about the current state though. Good news!
July 17th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I want a product that can manage both in MS or Open Source. How about documents, spreadsheets, etc to be convert to MS office?
July 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Thanks for the suggestion to file these as bugs. I definitely will, assuming they have not already been filed. I hope to file them today, but I am finding OpenOffice’s “IssueTracker” rather difficult to use.
Roland - I will certainly consider following this article up with some that look at OpenOffice > Office and at other parts of OpenOffice/Office. Let me know if there is anything in particular you are interested in.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
My understanding is the Microsoft will switch to OpenDocument format anyway. So I believe it would be better to check MS Office for compatibility with OpenOffice.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
> Text does not always wrap to the next line at the same point.
Where you using the same fonts?
There are also reference documents that make for easy testing.
http://katana.oooninja.com/w/reference_sample_documents
July 17th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Hardly surprising. This is the ECMA submitted format, not even the “improved” format. It can’t be implemented cleanly. The only saving grace is simply that is someone is stupid enough to use the current XML like format (instead of setting of for the older binary formats), they will work as well when MS implements the new revised format.
Something that would be interesting to see is how good or bad Office 2007 exports to the old binary formats. Do you lose formatting opening with Office 2003?
July 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
OK. I finally got the bugs submitted:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=91881
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=91882
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=91883