Microsoft Word always complains my ODT files are corrupt

[JimBobH]

Microsoft Word 2010 always complains about not being able to open a .ODT file from Writer version 4.x (I’m now using 4.2.1.1), saying it is “corrupt” and/or has something “missing” and wanting to “fix” it or “recover” it, then when I tell it Yes, it always opens and there is nothing missing and nothing wrong with the document. MS Word used to open ODT files instantly without complaining, but recently started inconveniencing ODT users. Of course, Microsoft claims to support .ODT. Hm-m-m-m.

Please refer me to some documentation that I can read to learn what is going on in this scenario, and if there are any plans to get MS Word to stop behaving this way. For example, is there any interest in trying to discover any special code M$ may have added to Word to trigger these extra steps any time it opens a file with a .ODT extension?

Thanks for any info.

Jim

[Pedro1]

Microsoft does that with it’s own files. If you open an Office 2010 file in Office 2003 even if you installed the MS Compatibility Pack, it will still warn you that some content is/might be lost. It is part of their marketing strategy to convince you to buy a new version.

There is nothing TDF can do about it. Eventually people will realize that they are being strong-armed into the Wintel trap…

Apparently Office 2013 offers better support for ODF so all you need is to do is buy the new version

[Regina]

Microsoft Office 2010 does only support ODF1.1. You need Microsoft Office 2013 to get support for ODF1.2. When using MS Office 2010 be aware, that Open Formula format was not defined in ODF1.1, and therefore Excel 2010 does not support it. When reading .ods documents Excel 2010 only imports the values and not the formulas. You need Excel 2013 to read the formulas. You should read Microsofts announcements, what features of ODF they support and what not.

In addition LibreOffice has introduced a lot of features, which are not defined in ODF 1.2, and you cannot expect, that foreign applications will understand them. You need to test each single document, even when using MS Office 2013.

If you do not want Microsoft Office 2010 to complain about the file, you have to save it in ODF1.1 format. The setting is in Tools > Options > Load/Save in section “Default File format”. Do not forget to set it back after saving. Unfortunately there is no option in the “Save as” dialog to choose the ODF version.

[L-user]

You are most probably on the wrong forum. This is LibreOffice form, but in your case you are having a problem in Microsoft Word. I suggest to search for Microsoft Office forum, for example like this one: http://www.msofficeforums.com/ and ask a question there. Maybe there is some setting in a product or some plug-in or something, but users of Microsoft Office will be better informed, you know most of the users on this forum do not use Microsoft Office, but LibreOffice instead.

[Pedro1]

@L-user, you did not understand the OP’s post. He is using LO and reporting a problem when opening LO generated ODF files in MS Office 2010. He is warning about what he thought was a Microsoft malpractice. Regina already clarified that it could be related to ODF version. In fact you can see that he is not an MS fan…

[L-user]

@Pedro1, still if user is having a problem in Microsoft Office it should start investigating that product and search for Microsoft Office forum. Like I see Regina uses both tools Microsoft Office and LibreOffice, but many users on this forum (me included) are not using Microsoft Office, so because of having Microsoft Office problem, the best change is to post a question on that product forum - there are probably more experienced users with Microsoft Office.

[K.Steve]

Does the OpenOffice Writer complain too? Have you tried to open the ODT file in OpenOffice Writer?
If not, try it.

If files are severely corrupted and you are looking a way to read them, you can try free demo version of SysInfoTools OpenOffice ODT Recovery tool. This will allow you to view or read the corrupted ODT file.

To read more about this software, please visit www.sysinfotools.com

Thanks.

[Tyco72]

I don´t know whether it has something to do with the support of ODF format 1.1 instead of 1.2. But I experience this:

1. Take a .doc file originally created with MS Office. Open it in LibreOffice and save it as .odt file
   I open the converted .odt file in MS Office. I get the corruption error message (the file is not corrupted at all).

2. Open with MS Office a .odt file originally created with LibreOffice. I get no error message.

I think that MS Office recognizes that a file was originally created with MS Office and they just want put obstacles to the exchange of files between the formats. I tested it with Office 10.