What is the best way to draw in LibreOffice that is ready for exporting to MS Word?

[Ljiljan]

Currently, all drawing when saved in MS Word format (docx or doc) from LibreOffice Writer are wrong.

So, what is the best way to draw in LibreOffice that will be easily and with no mistakes saved in MS Word format? Libre Office is very powerfull, but I cannot force other people to use LibreOffice, so often I need to send my documents to colleagues…

I tried to draw in LibreOffice Draw, export it to JPG or PNG and import it into Writer. This is good, but it is not vector graphic anymore. SVG format is perfect, but LibreOffice Draw export page borders as well and no export of selection is possible.

[Ljiljan]

->> SVG can be imported in Writer 4.0.3. but when saved in Word format, it is converted and it does not look good

[Ljiljan]

My question was not about SVG graphic, but how to create drawings with LibreOffice, so MS Word could open it as well. SVG was one approach I was hoping it would be working…

This approach is pretty good (acctually perfect):

1. Draw objects in LibreOffice Draw

2. Copy to clipboard (CTRL + C)

3. Paste Special in LibreOffice Writer (Shift + Ctrl + V)

4. Select GDI metafile

5. Now you can save your document in any format (odt, docx, doc) without fear of being unrecognized when opened in MS Word or LibreOffice Writer again.

What I discovered that GDI metafile is not the same as WMF or EMF format, because when drawing is exported from Draw to WMF or EMF, and then imported to Writer → printing to PDF does not work (from LibreOffice Writer), as well as some other problem. However, copy->paste works just fine.

I am using LibreOffice 4.0.3.3. with Ubuntu 13.04.

[oweng]

Thank you for clarifying and reporting back on your working solution. The SVG focus was an assumption on my part that stemmed from your phrase “SVG format is perfect”.

[DavidBalažic]

“Copy to clipboard (CTRL + V)” you mean ctrl-c, right?

[Ljiljan]

CTRL + C Thanks. This approach is still really good when seding documents in DOC to other people.

[Tuanis]

Please see my question and the answer(s) given

[oweng]

Is it possible to create the SVG in Inkscape and import the resultant graphic from there? Inkscape has better control over many aspects of creating vector art than Draw, including the canvas. I believe the “page borders” problem you mention is essentially a lack of support for cropping within LO.

EDIT: I just realised you are wanting to save SVG to DOC/DOCX format. This is unlikely to ever be supported as Microsoft would prefer you use Silverlight. I suppose it may be implemented at some point but there could well be a long wait. FWIW the related bug is fdo#51510 although I experience varying degrees of support according to the application in which the SVG was created (which was why I initially indicated Inkscape over Draw). There have been significant improvements to the SVG > PNG convertion under LO v4.0 but at present it will always result in a raster rather than vector object in DOC/DOCX.

[ROSt53]

I made a test with a graphic created in Draw.

• converted to bitmap
• save picture → format SVG all worked
  fine
• open Writer file
• insert picture from file
• double clicked on SVG file
  and get following error message:

What did I do wrong or do we have a bug?

The answer to this question could also help for the original question.

OS: XP prof / SP3 - LibO 3.6.6.2 and 4.0.3.3

In both LibO versions the error message except the LibO version difference in the title line.

[oweng]

I think this is what you did wrong: “converted to bitmap”. Why convert an object you want in SVG (vector) format to a raster object? Export to SVG before and after Convert > To Bitmap… and have a look at the XML of the two objects.

[ROSt53]

@oweng - I tried to export a group of graphical elements as a SVG file but this results inthe the export of an entire page. I only need the group of grahical elements. What can I do?

[oweng]

That is bug fdo#42692 SVG export ignores “Selection” option.

[ROSt53]

Thanks for the bug information. I added a comment in respect to my test in 3.6.6 and 4.0.3