using open office

[wendyl]

When sending text file by email from Open Office can I make it openable by recipient who has MS word only thanks

[Ethel]

Yes, no problem at all - OpenOffice if fully compatible with MS Word.

[wendyl]

Yes Ethel that is what I thought but my husband sent his file to a friend who could not open it. It is just a page of text on family history. I was convinced there should not be such a problem and sent a copy to my PC where I had the same result when I opened with word it came up as a load of gobbledygook. I have word 2000 and very rarely use it but have no particular difficulty when I do. Do you have any other ideas as this is not the first time he has sent this person something she cannot open. I managed with a serif programme to change the said file to a jpg which she now says she has received OK but that was rather long winded and involves me doing it for my husband who only knows how to do the few things he needs to know for his family history and old postcards hobby and isn't really interested in learning anything new!!

[rojash]

When you click Save or Save as, below the field where you type the file name, there is another which says "Save as type:"

If, like me, you have set open office to saving ODT files as the default, you will need to click the drop-down arrow and select one of the the MS Word options before saving.

[fo3nix]

When you save a file, make sure that the type it's being saved as (underneath the box you type the filename into) is set to word2000 or similar. The default, ODF, is not compatible with microsoft word.

[rojash]

Incidentally, you can set the program to always create Word compatible documents by doing the following:

Click Tools/Options
In the left pain, expand the Load/Save section
Click on General
In the "Default file format" section:
Select the document type as "Text document"
In the "Always save as" section, select one of the 4 Microsoft Word options
Click OK

[wendyl]

brilliant - thanks to you both - it was an odt file - I'll make sure my husband has a print out of this answer to refer to if he forgets it will save me hassle