Re: Word template and macros into Open Office

[Jean Hollis Weber <jean05 -at- jeanweber -dot- com>]

On 6 May 2007, Shira Abel asked,

 > How difficult is it to convert templates and macros from Word
 > into Open Office Writer? Do they work the same once imported?

Word templates are very easy to convert. Just open the Word 
template in Writer and save it as a Writer template. You can also 
use the batch converter that comes with OpenOffice.

Although most features of a Word template work fine in 
OpenOffice, some things do not successfully convert, so for a 
typical user guide some manual cleanup will probably be necessary 
(see below).

Macros are the big issue: in brief, Word macros do not work in 
OpenOffice, because they are written in a different programming 
language. All the macros will have to be rewritten. I don't know 
if any macro converters are available.

Other examples of incompatibilities: some Word fields (such as 
Styleref) do not have an exact counterpart in Writer; and the 
mechanism for restarting page numbering on the first page after 
the front matter is different. Earlier versions of OpenOffice had 
other (minor but annoying when doing conversions) differences 
from Word which are mostly gone in version 2. Also, the 
relationship between templates and documents works a bit 
differently in the two programs.

For more about differences between usage in MSOffice and 
OpenOffice, see the "OpenOffice.org 2.0 Migration Guide" 
available in free PDF (as individual chapters or a full book) 
here (scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it):
http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/

--Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
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