Difference between revisions of "Documentation/OOoAuthors User Manual/Getting Started/Opening files"

Revision as of 11:07, 13 April 2008

To open an existing document, choose File > Open or click the Open File icon on the Standard Toolbar or press Control+O.

The Open dialog appears. Figure 1 shows the Windows XP version of this dialog.

Figure 1

Choose the file and then click Open.

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File formats

OpenOffice.org can import Microsoft Office files. However, at the time of writing, Microsoft Office cannot import files in the OpenDocument format used by OOo. Plug-ins are becoming available to allow Microsoft Office to read and write OpenDocument files, but if you want to send a file to Microsoft Office users and be sure they can open it, save it in a Microsoft Office format or in .rtf. Table 1 is a list for quick reference.

Table 1: Comparison of OpenDocument and Microsoft Office file types

Default file formats

OpenOffice.org saves files in the OpenDocument format by default unless told otherwise. This default can be changed, for example, if you always want to save as Microsoft Office files. To change the default file formats:

1. Go to Tools > Options > Load/Save > General. (See Figure 2.)
2. In the Default file format section of this page, choose a document type (for example, “Text document") and a file format from the Always save as list.
3. Repeat for each document type, as necessary.
4. Click OK to save your changes.

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Figure 2. Choosing default formats for saving files.

Opening text documents

In addition to OpenDocument formats (.odt, .ott, .oth, and .odm), Writer 2.x can open the formats used by OOo 1.x (.sxw, .stw, and .sxg) and the following text document formats:

When opening .htm or .html files (used for web pages), OpenOffice.org customizes Writer for working with these files.

Opening spreadsheets

In addition to OpenDocument formats (.ods and .ots), Calc 2.x can open the formats used by OOo 1.x (.sxc and .stc) and the following spreadsheet formats:

Opening presentations

In addition to OpenDocument formats (.odp, .odg, and .otp), Impress 2.x can open the formats used by OOo 1.x (.sxi and .sti) and the following presentation formats:

• Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP (.ppt, .pps, and .pot)
• StarDraw and StarImpress (.sda, .sdd, .sdp, and .vor)
• CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile (.cgm).

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Opening graphic files

In addition to OpenDocument formats (.odg and .otg), Draw 2.x can open the formats used by OOo 1.x (.sxd and .std) and the following graphic formats:

Opening formula files

In addition to OpenDocument Formula (.odf) files, Math 2.x can open the format used by OOo 1.x (.sxm), StarMath, (.smf), and MathML (.mml) files.

When opening a Word document that contains an embedded equation editor object, if the option for it is checked in Tools > Options > Load/Save > Microsoft Office, the object will be automatically converted to an OpenOffice.org Math object.