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I recently received a .docx file as an attachment.
However, what I tried, LO wouldn't read it. It opened it but gave a blank page.
The people who sent the file are complete computer illiterate who follow MS$ like slaves. I assume it is the latest Word or whatever MS$ uses as text application. It can well be that the file is composed of pictures. When I open the file with Hexedit I see content and the first 2 bytes are hex 50 4B (PK) and byte 31 till 49 contains "[Content_Types] xml, the byte beween ] and x is hex 2E.
Can anybody explain why LO can't read this file?
Help is much appreciated.
Joep
Hi 
DocX normally opens easily in LO and OOo (3.3.0 and after). Which OS; Windows,
Ubuntu, other linux, Bsd or Mac?
Regards from
Tom
Tom,
Thanks for your quick reply.
Sorry, that I didn't mention my soft- and hardware.
AMD Phenom II Ubuntu Lucif (10.4) LO libreoffice-3.3.2.2.
The file is not very confidential: an invitation for a party.
I will mail it to your personal E-mail address with the attachment in a moment.
Joep
Hi
Lol, our systems are identical! So much for trying it on something different
just to see if that worked!
I got a docX poster to put up on a website and asked the person to please
re-send as a doc so that other people could read it. Their reply asked how to
do "Save As ..."!! I even ended up sending screen-shots from a Windows machine
using MSO 2010. A month or so later they sent another poster for the website,
as DocX of course. I just quietly edited it, made a pdf and then a gif and put
it up on the website for them.
Regards from
Tom
Thanks Tom for the tip to open it with the archive manager and I could indeed see and read the image-files. I cannot read the .xml files as firefox and chrome display it as an .xml file without substitution and LO does actually the same. Do you know which application reads these .xml files with substitution?
Joep
Tom,
Sorry, forgot that our systems are identical definitively shows we have some knowledge of IT and economy!!
I supplemented it 5 days ago with a 24-inch 1920x1080 monitor, that is a difference in real estate when you have worked for years with a 17" 1440x900 monitor. I had a good excuse: I needed new glasses!!
Joep
Please send te document to me as well. I will file bugs on the
applicable portions of the document.
I would also appreciate if you comment on this very relevant Ubuntu
bug regarding LO/MSO compatibility:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-website/+bug/773243
Thanks.
Dotan,
"Well, allow me to retort" (as a famous movie character said)
LibreOffice IS fully compatible in the sense that it will open any MS Office
file. HOWEVER files created in MS Office may not look exactly the same (or
some features, e.g. Equations not be loaded at all) in LO or OOo
IMO the biggest problem is that files created in LO (and OOo) when saved in
MS Office formats often do not look the same (although users are warned
about this). And that is the biggest obstacle to that strong affirmation in
the Ubuntu site (and probably the largest obstacle for a wider adoption).
Just my 2 cents 
That is not fully compatible. That is partially compatible.
Would you say that HTML 5 is fully compatible with HTML 1.0? Because
it is, so long as one restricts his use of HTML 5 to only using <p>
tags.
Hi
There does seem to have been a recent change somewhere that is creating problems
with docX. The normal problem of re-arranged pictures and things is inevitable
even just using different versions of MSO but there have been a couple people in
last couple of days that have sent me docX files that probably would have worked
previously, or at least opened. Perhaps its a change with the Xml
implementation in Windows or perhaps some recent fashion or who knows. It does
seem to be specifically picture-related but seems to stop files from being
opened. Hey, it's Windows, it could be anything.
Regards from
Tom
Dotan,
Thanks. I don't think it helps to add a "me too" to the claim of ubuntu which is not correct. I don't think it is a fault of ubuntu but of MS$ who tries to monopolize the office field.
I can send you the file to your private mail-address but see the mail of Tom Davies who suspect -as I do also - it is a MS$ trick which of course is extremely stupid as older MSO versions cannot read the file as well.
Joep
Yes, Tom, there are new problems between build 3.4 and docx which didn't
exist in 3.3.2 (interestingly this applies to the 3.4 betas of both LO and
OOo) E.g. for a docx file containing an Equation, OOo simply ignores the
equation while LO ignores the equation and everything after it.
But it's not a Windows problems (you had to say that, didn't you? ), it's
the way LO/OOo store or interpret docx. Here is an interesting article from
German magazine translated by a "competing" office suite
I don't seem to have many problems opening docx files I have created in LO 3.3.2 - the problem with THIS particular file, having opened it in MS Word 2007, would seem to be that the creators have inserted a Text Box and the ENTIRE document is inside this text box. Why on EARTH anyone would do that in a Word document I have NO IDEA.....
Joep, if you'd like to send it to me directly I'll see if I can help.
Gary
Dotan,
Thanks. I don't think it helps to add a "me too" to the claim of ubuntu
which is not correct. I don't think it is a fault of ubuntu but of MS$ who
tries to monopolize the office field.
No matter who is at fault for the document incompatibility issue,
Ubuntu is wrong in claiming that they ship software which is "fully
compatible". You can see that a particular user is arguing that the
claim is true, so it is important that users who can objectively state
"I had a major compatibility issue" do so. This is not a technical
issue, it is a change to the wording of the website. If you know
Canonical, then you will know how important your mention of this issue
is on that bug.
I can send you the file to your private mail-address but see the mail of Tom
Davies who suspect -as I do also - it is a MS$ trick which of course is
extremely stupid as older MSO versions cannot read the file as well.
Joep
I was able to open and display the file only on office.live.com. No
Linux-based software (LO, OOo, Abiword, Kword) could handle it. Here
is the OOo bug, as the LO bugtracker is not working at the moment:
http://openoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=117980
The problem is that this is a document-SPECIFIC issue, not a general docx bug.
Both Windows and Linux versions of LO 3.3.2 WILL open docx files. I generally have no problems here opening docx files in LO (bar occasional minor formatting problems).
This particular file is not readable by ANY version of OO or LO because of the silly way the creators made it.
What they did was to create a huge text box and insert all the images inside that text box. WHY they would think of doing that heaven only knows....
I finally got the LO bugtracker to come up:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36862
On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 10:14, Gordon Burgess-Parker
The problem is that this is a document-SPECIFIC issue, not a general docx
bug.
Both Windows and Linux versions of LO 3.3.2 WILL open docx files. I
generally have no problems here opening docx files in LO (bar occasional
minor formatting problems).
This particular file is not readable by ANY version of OO or LO because of
the silly way the creators made it.
What they did was to create a huge text box and insert all the images inside
that text box. WHY they would think of doing that heaven only knows....
Are you suggesting that LO/OOo will not display images in a text box,
but that is a valid MSO docx feature? If so, then please add that
information to the bug. However, please remember that the bugtracker
is a technical device, so just add the technical details of why the
document does not display, without the ad hominem attacks on the
document creators. Stupid or not, that is how people are creating
documents and LO must deal with it or not be compatible.
Thank you for your insight!
Are you suggesting that LO/OOo will not display images in a text box,
but that is a valid MSO docx feature?
It would appear so.
Stupid or not, that is how people are creating
documents
I have to say it's the first time I've ever seen a document like that and I've been using MS Office and OO/LO for a long time!
The only possibility I can think of is that the document is actually a scanned image rather than a created document...
So should the user adapt his/her work behavior to the software?
I really don't understand your statement.
Regards,
Gianluca
Not at all. But doing what they did is a REALLY strange and obscure way of creating such a document - there's no reason to do what they did at all. Unless it's not a document they actually created but is a scanned image...