Hi! I use LibreOffice 4.1 on Ubuntu 13.04.
If I want to save a document as a .docx in order to send it to a Microsoft Office user, which one should I choose? Microsoft Word 2007/2010 XML or Office Open XML?
This applies not only to documents, but also to presentations and spreadsheets, for that matter.
Thanks!
From my experience, I recommend you to use “DOC” format (Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP/2003) instead of DOCX. While DOCX is pretty good with tables and text, there is still lots of improvement needed when it comes to drawings. On the other hand, DOC is also good when it comes to drawings and supported by LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.
I know your question was which “DOCX” format to use, but my answer to you would be: neither (none).
There are only few differences, like the left/right paragraph margin is called left/right in one version, while the other version calls them start/end. In general, if you want to interact with Word, the “Microsoft Word 2007/2010 XML” version is the recommended one, when the OOXML standard and Word behavior conflicts, this filter will give you the Word version. The “Office Open XML” one will give you what the standard specifies: this is still understood by newer Word version, but not e.g. by Word 2007.
It is not an accident that “Microsoft Word 2007/2010 XML” is what gets selected, if you type “.docx” in the save as dialog and it sets the filter type for you automatically.
Correct answer is NONE of them! If you intent to exchange documents with Microsoft Office then correct file format to save into is DOC and not DOCX. Both file formats can be opened by Microsoft Office, but LibreOffice does support DOC in more deep then DOCX. So less trouble to expect.
I suggest reading the following discussion: http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/13054/which-is-the-best-file-format-to-exhange-with-microsoft-office/
My experience with my first (fairly large - 130K) movie script translation done with LO Writer, requiring six different paragraph styles (Scene, Action, Character, Dialogue, Parenthetical, Transition) is entirely in favor of DOCX - PERFECT. When I saved it in DOC instead, the Scene headings were out of whack. RTF was good too.
Just regular text, with paragraph styles, no tables or complicated stuff.