I have a document going from one computer to another when being saved back and forth between using Word 2016 (not 365) and LO. My question is whether when saving to Word in LO, .doc is often better than .docx, The composition is not complex, but I get a large frame around the text, and the text is moved up, so not good for printing. I think the frame came from LO, but don’t know what it is. Word now behaves differently, so maybe I need to repair it.
Install LibreOffice on both computers. This is doable within minutes without any additional cost, not even considerable system load. When the installer prompts for MS Office file type associations, do not let LO open them by default, since you have the appropriate application installed.
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Always store (save) your important documents into the native, international standard ODF file formats.
Then you can make some copies (“export” and
/or “save as” into the foreign (obsolete or newer) file formats.
And always re-edit the ODF format document.
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What is “reedit the ODF format document”? How is that done?
I suppose I was too optimistic about the compatibility of LO and Word, saving from one to the other, back and forth with no issues.
I am still using Word somewhat because I have not fully figured out customizing toolbars etc. on LO. I have many years of Word docs, but Word is going away for those who do want a desktop app, not a cloud app. I am getting ready for that.
As I mentioned in reply to someone else, Word is going away as a standalone desktop app, in 2025 for me because I have Office 2016. I am hoping to use both Word and LO until I fully figure out LO, hence the interest in going back and forth with Doc saves. Two computers being involved is incidental, and I should have left that out of my question.
Now it seems perfectly reasonable to use the native file format of LibreOffice.
For Writer this is ODT. If you always save your files in ODT as the source, you won’t have any compatibility problems.
If you absolutely need to share a file in a different file format, you can choose Save As and create a copy in a different file format.
However, always keep your ODT as the source and to make changes.
How to open files from MS-Office 2007 or 2010 (.DOCX, .XLSX,…)?
If you need different Word conversions so I would recommend the docx format. You can unzip it and when necessary repair it but this is not doable on doc formatted documents.
You better exclusively use the odt format for high performance and less corruption events. I totally agree to the other given answers.
Regardless of format, alternating between apps for one document file is likely to create artifacts within the file. Those artifacts are normally hidden from view, but will unexpectedly show up in certain settings.
One prominent area is that of styles:
- LO Writer assumes named styles - builtin and customized - as your primary formatting/document structuring strategy. There are separate style sets for graphical objects, document pages, paragraphs, running text, and others.
- MS Word has a limited support for named/custom styles, consisting of a hybrid paragraph/running text style set.
Each translation between contexts (LO Writer open or save to doc/docx file, or MS Word open or save to odt file) forces an approximation of the features of the storage format which are not supported by the app, and vice versa. These approximations tend to pile up, even with a simple, basic document composition. Things are easily “lost (and/or added) in translation”.
By all means, alternate between the apps to learn strengths, weaknesses and differences. However, it is safest to keep to one app - and to use its native storage format - for working with each single document.
Opening for display/print usually does not modify content, so using either app for previewing the other file should not cause any hidden artifact pileup. Content rendering may differ slightly between the apps, so depending on your purpose and work environment, this “alternate preview strategy” may even be desirable.
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