open office

[Baz]

when using open office whats the best file extension to save a document in, if there is one

[Rik]

ISTR the native format is RTF, Baz - but I'm probably hopelessly wrong.

[Inactive]

or....RTFM....

[Rik]

 

One letter, a whole new meaning.

[kinmel]

That's another version of the question " how long is a piece of string?"

Open Office offers over 20 file format options to save with and add-ins offer more too.

The deciding factor on the correct save format is what happens to the file once it's saved.

If it is only for use on that PC the .odt is as good as any other, but if it is being sent for reading, or processing elsewhere then where it is going determines the format.

RTF gives almost universal accessibility to the file but does not offer a full range of fonts and page formatting tools etc.

If the recipient uses Microsoft products then their various Office formats are best and the same for Starwriter and Ability too.

If you don't want them to be able to easily alter the document then PDF is the best format.

[Rik]

Thanks, Alan. 

[Sebby]

ISTR the native format is RTF, Baz - but I'm probably hopelessly wrong.

I thought it was XML, but I could also be wrong.

[kinmel]

I thought it was XML, but I could also be wrong.

No, your right again 

OpenOffice  uses OpenDocument format which is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Open Office 3 uses these extension  descriptors:-

    * .odt for word processing (text) documents
    * .ods for spreadsheets
    * .odp for presentations
    * .odg for graphics
    * .odf for formulae and mathematical equations
    * .odb for databases

[Rik]

No, your right again 

Worrying, isn't it, Alan.

[Sebby]

[Inactive]

    * .ods for spreadsheets

They could have used .sods for everything else.

[Simon]

[kinmel]

They could have used .sods for everything else.

[vitriol]

I always save openoffice documents with the microsoft office compatible extensions ie. .xls for Excel .doc for Word to ensure maximum compatibility.

[Baz]

if you save in the default openoffice format does it still open in Word etc.

[vitriol]

no the Microsoft Office applications cannot open files with the OpenOffice extension.

What you can do in OpenOffice though is change the default save options so that it will always save for example,  a Calc file as .xls or a Writer file as .doc.

IIRC this is found under Tools > Option > Load/Save > General