OpenOffice vs MS Word

When saving to Word format, a documents using advanced features may break because Word doesn’t directly support those exact features.

Some features Word doesn’t support:

  • Xref to contents of text box.
  • Xrefs/bookmarks with spaces in names. Tries to fix by using %20 in lieu.

Stuff that Word supports but OOo doesn’t translate perfectly:

  • Equations: spaces may be dropped from text in an equation

Symptoms

The converted doc will look OK at first, but any changes or updates will expose problems.

The Table of Contents may not update properly.  Cross-references and links won’t work. Other fields that Word updates will have error messages or incomplete/bad info.

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