Hello,
When I open MS Word files in LibreOffice, the whole formatting is messed up. Fonts get changed, spaces between the lines increases, etc. Is there any solution for this?
I am trying to switch from MS Office to LibreOffice completely but these things are getting me frustrated.
Please do not despair: there are ways to improve compatibility. If possible, ask the sender to format the document using styles instead of manual formatting: this saves time, improves consistency and makes the document richer and better for everyone, no matter the office suite they use.
(Update: this time, I put my hands on WPS Office which is identical to MicroSoft Office and found no page/paragraph/*** styles - wow, I cannot imagine how students wrote their academic articles with tool like this. One reason libreoffice get messed-up document to fix …)
Although it is a common issue, there is never enough hands to actually work on conversion guide for existing files.
I do think, formatting messed up like yours do not matter much.
Line Spacing is part of style (F11 call the menu)
Fonts change would be identical, please check if you have the required fonts installed.
USE style, indent and paragraph instead line break and space, in both MS Office and LibreOffice.
Instead of saying that it does not matter much, it would be more accurate to say that it can be fixed relatively easily. The problem of formatting loss is not to be taken lightly, but your advice is good: using styles is always preferable to manual formatting. Structuring the document is key.
@CyanCG When you say “styles”, do you mean styles in LibO or in MSO?
I LibO I agree, in MSO I never understood the styles really. Now I am happy with LibO.
I mean both, though I agree that in MS Office style management is awkward. LibO is a much better tool for styling a document consistently. In Office, as far as I know, styles are not even properly separated into families! So one has to be very careful.