Compatibility with MS Office

Dear Community Members,

on my PC (Windows 10 Pro) I use the latest release of LibreOffice (5.2). Recently I have received from two business partners some documents (Word and PowerPoint) generated under the following releases
Business Partner 1 : Word 2011, Version 14.3.9
Business Partner 2 : Word 15.32 (17009) and Power Point 15.32 (17009)

Both partners use the above software on a MAC.

When I open their files, some formatting details are scrambled, such as tables in a Word document. I have set the parameters of my Libre Office for two-way compatibility (MS Office to LibreOffice and viceversa), but the problem persists.

Any suggestion on how to solve it?

Thanks in advance

Carla

Hi Carla:

This link may not solve your problem, it discusses differences between Word and OpenOffice/LibreOffice:
https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=83694

Be aware that full compatibiliy only exists within the text processing programs themselves…

Any suggestion on how to solve it?

No, sorry. Ask your business partners either to save as odt files (Word (2007 and) 2010 and later can do, but the output files are not 100 percent the same as the Libre output files) or better to install LibreOffice. If your position is “not that importance” (sorry, I didn’t know a better expression) so install Microsoft Office for better exchange and edit of files…

Cheers

I would like to add that every time I receive a Word or Excel document authored by one of my graduate students on a Mac version of Microsoft Office, I find annoying differences when I open their documents in Microsoft Office 365/2016 on my Windows 10 laptop.

Effectively, I am saying that differences should be expected at two levels: (1) between Windows and Mac versions of Microsoft Office, and (2) between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.

In my experience, the differences between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office are getting smaller and fewer over time, although I confess I still need a Microsoft Office installation on my computer (luckily paid for by the University of Piraeus, where I am faculty), to ensure that I am not missing out on an important document feature that has been imported incorrectly.