Format totally mangled if pasted into Google Docs?

[Bigs]

Hi, usually with Word I can create something offline privately, and when I’m ready to share with a client that insists on Google Docs I can just paste my Word file onto a blank Docs file.

However the file I’ve just created with Writer is totally mangled and utterly unusable, with blocks of text turned vertical, some thin tables suddenly hugely wide etc. It would be quicker to rewrite and create in Docs than to repair that mess.

The file was saved as a .docx, so it should be pasted the same?

Anyone any idea what’s going wrong?

[Zizi64]

…“Google Docs” and “Word”…

This is a LibreOffice forum.
Note: never was and never will be 100% compatibility between the different file formats.

Use the ODF file formats if you want to work with the LibreOffice efficiently.

Or, please upload and link some sample files here.

[ajlittoz]

Google Docs is known to mess up documents. In addition you saved .docx, needing a conversion from Writer internal format to an alien format. Depending on your formatting and workflow, this translation can really degrade your document. ODF and .docx are not identical formats. They have a common intersection for simple features but as soon as you add “complex” objects like tables or numbered lists (chapter numbering is a numbered list), expect problems.

To share a file, store it on a file server. There will be no translation and your document will not be mangled.

[Bigs]

If up to me I’d never go anywhere near Google docs, but my main client now insists on Google doc access, so I can no longer just send a Word file.

As my Win7 PC has died and I’d rather not keep paying again and again for Office (6 times now? 7?) I’m trying to use Libre…

[anon87010807]

@Bigs

The file was saved as a .docx, so it should be pasted the same?

LibreOffice converts docx files into its native format and pastes to the clipboard using its own routines. Then when you paste that into Google Docs, Google Docs’ import filter takes over to convert the clipboard content into its native format. MS Word copied text apparently gets imported better than LibreOffice’s.

So, it may be best to write with as little formatting as you can while in LibreOffice and to add all formatting after pasting into Google Docs. Or use MS Word.

[Bigs]

Well I’ve found what seems to be a solution, of sorts.

By installing Google Drive, I can put the .docx file in there, and then ‘Open in Google Docs’, and doing that, for whatever reason, allows it to open in Google Docs with nearly perfect formatting.

I still despise working with Google but this seems to work