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Hi,
When I convert .odt documents to .doc or .docx the original formatting gets
messed up with, in .doc, half the footnotes lost sometimes. How can I
prevent this from happening? I use Ubuntu 12.04 and LibreOffice 3.5.7.2.
Wishes,
Tamas
Hi 
My guess is that Doc works fine and it’s only DocX that gets messed up.
Keep originals in Odt and edit the Odts. As you already do.
Only convert to the Doc, the older MS format (2003, Xp, and earlier) . Avoid the recent DocX from 2007, 2010, 2013 and so on. Pdf is also useful so that people get to see the document exactly the way it appears on your machine (assuming they have the right fonts)
Regards from
Tom
Hi
My guess is that Doc works fine and it's only DocX that gets messed up.
Keep originals in Odt and edit the Odts. As you already do.
Only convert to the Doc, the older MS format (2003, Xp, and earlier) . Avoid the recent DocX from 2007, 2010, 2013 and so on. Pdf is also useful so that people get to see the document exactly the way it appears on your machine (assuming they have the right fonts)
Regards from
Tom
________________________________
From: tamas czovek <tamasczovek@yahoo.com>
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>; "users+help@global.libreoffice.org" <users+help@global.libreoffice.org>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 9:44
Subject: [libreoffice-users] converting .odt to .docHi,
When I convert .odt documents to .doc or .docx the original formatting gets
messed up with, in .doc, half the footnotes lost sometimes. How can I
prevent this from happening? I use Ubuntu 12.04 and LibreOffice 3.5.7.2.
Hi
Ouch!! If Doc doesn't work either then that makes it difficult 
Sorry i don't know how to help with this.
Ubuntu 12.04 and LibreOffice 3.5.7 should be fine. I take it that the 3.5.7 is the one that is installed by default in Ubuntu 12.04? Is it possible to try out the 4.0.4 without losing your 3.5.7? Perhaps by installing on a virtual machine or 2nd machine or something?
Apols and regards from
Tom
________________________________
From: tamas czovek <tamasczovek@yahoo.com>
To: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 10:22
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] converting .odt to .docThanks for this Tom.
Unfortunately, Doc doesn't work fine either. I have encountered this problem with virtually all MS formats, XP and earlier including. Converting to them corrupts formatting.
Regards,
Tamas________________________________
From: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk>
To: tamas czovek <tamasczovek@yahoo.com>; "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>; "users+help@global.libreoffice.org" <users+help@global.libreoffice.org>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 11:12
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] converting .odt to .docHi
My guess is that Doc works fine and it's only DocX that gets messed up.Keep originals in Odt and edit the Odts. As you already do.
Only convert to the Doc, the older MS format (2003, Xp, and earlier) . Avoid the recent DocX from 2007, 2010, 2013 and so on. Pdf is also useful so that people get to see the document exactly the way it appears on your machine (assuming they have the right fonts)
Regards from
Tom________________________________
From: tamas czovek <tamasczovek@yahoo.com>
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>; "users+help@global.libreoffice.org" <users+help@global.libreoffice.org>
Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2013, 9:44
Subject: [libreoffice-users] converting .odt to .docHi,
When I convert .odt documents to .doc or .docx the original formatting getsmessed up with, in .doc, half the footnotes lost sometimes. How can I
prevent this from
happening? I use Ubuntu 12.04 and LibreOffice 3.5.7.2.
I've experienced similar problems. The work arounds depend on your objectives.
* Fifteen years ago, I had problems with fundamental incompatibilities between the PC and Mac versions of MS Word. The work around then was I got a Mac, because my primary collaborators at that time all had Macs.
* If you only have one or a small number of regular collaborators, can you convince them to install LibreOffice parallel to MS Office? Then you can distribute files in LO office and let them worry about the incompatibilities.
* Alternatively, might it be feasible to use Google Drive? For collaborative document development, that could be the best option. Unfortunately, it's not a full featured office suite, and some features may not be available or easy to learn how to use. I've used it to great advantage in some cases. I'm not sure, but there may be commercial products that may be better.
* None of the above will work if you perceive a need to distribute something in *.doc format to people you don't know. In situations like that, I've distributed the same document in *.pdf and *.doc formats. For the *.doc format, I've played around with the original adding some extra blank lines between page or column breaks so the visual formatting could be retained through one cycle of saving to *.doc and reopening in *.odt but might not be retained through a second cycle.
* For the long term, I'd encourage you to submit bug reports. For that, you need a replicable example -- and the simpler the better. I'll try to create time to do that with one of my examples; I should have done it a couple of years ago. If multiple people submit bug reports with similar but different examples, the combined effect will increase the chances that one of the core developers will perceive a need to prioritize fixing the problem. If you are a software developer and you have time, you could volunteer to help find the lines of code that generate the problem and suggest fixes. I've contributed code to R (www.r-project.org), but I don't perceive a large enough need to volunteer my time for this.
Hope this helps.
Spencer
Hi
I think the best answer is to get the other people to use LibreOffice or OpenOffice if they want to collaborate with you.
Perhaps just distribute as Odt and point out that the newer version of MSO can handle it and even MSO 2010 and 2007 can handle Odt (even though those last 2 can't handle Ods). Perhaps point out that if they don't want to buy the latest MSO then LibreOffice is free.
There is always the "Portable Apps" option
http://www.libreoffice.org/index.php/download/portable/
if they are not allowed to install stuff on their machines. Note that can apparently also be installed to a Cloud but i've not heard from anyone who has done that. So it might be fantastic and completely trouble-free.
I think 2nd best idea was getting other people to use Google Drive and Google Docs. Then the format is irrelevant. They probably wouldn't even notice that they are using Odt then.
A lot of the bug-fixing currently done is to try to fix compatibility issues with MSO's formats. So, yes post bug-reports but also try more recent versions of LibreOffice as the problem might already have been fixed.
Regards from
Tom
I have a similar problem when saving a spreadsheet as .xls or .xlsx -- the format is not always recognized at the other end. When I have a chance to work with the IRS (to whom I'm trying to upload the spreadsheet, to report education) and figure out exactly where the failure occurs I'll pass the word along here. Their software has some problem with the .xls version, and won't even recognize the .xlsx as a spreadsheet.
Dave
Hi
Send them an Ods, the native format for OpenOffice, LibreOffice and many others.
Perhaps also send them a Csv.
Always avoid the formats that have the extra X at the end as they keep changing with every new release of MS Office such that one version sometimes messes up the documents created in another version.
Regards from
Tom
Tom, that's not an option in this case. The file has to be uploaded (via a third party) and will reject an ods file before even looking at it.
Odd about the xlsx formats changing, since through its shenanigans (I'm being generously polite with that term) a few years ago Microsoft got it accepted as an international standard.
Dave
Hi
Yes, they got got it accepted as an ISO standard but then never seem quite able to implement the standard as written-up. Each new version of MSO gets it a little bit wrong in some new way, which doesn't get documented so people have to reverse engineer MS's implementation before figuring out how to conform with their implementation.
Regards from
Tom
LO version 3.6.7 - last of its line - and the 4.0.5 or 4.1.0 versions will give you better results for reading/writing the newer MSO formats like .docx.
Every line upgrade tends to be better at using the MSO formats, over the previous lines. You are still using the 3.5.x line. The 3.6.x line released its last version several weeks ago. The 4.0.x line just released the 4.0.5 version today. A few weeks ago the 4.1.0 version came out as well.
So you might have more success with the 3.6.7 or 4.0.5 versions.
I use Ubuntu 12.04 with the MATE desktop environment, instead of Unity. I am now running 4.0.5 [64-bit].
I know that Ubuntu's repository is really behind the current version[s] that are out on the LibreOffice.org download pages. So you might want to upgrade you version of LO to one of the newer ones.
http://www.libreoffice.org/download
you can choose which version to download from this link. I would use 4.0.5.
Tim L.
Manager of the LO NA-DVD .iso project.
http://libreoffice-na.us/
4.0.4 NA-DVD .iso file
http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/box/4.0.4/multi/LO-4.0.4_English-NA-DVD_All-Platforms_Multi-Lang_plus-extras.iso
4.1.0 NA-DVD .iso file
http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/box/4.1.0/multi/LO-4.1.0_English-NA-DVD_All-Platforms_Multi-Lang_plus-extras.iso