What’s the difference between an OpenOffice and a Microsoft word document?

3 Responses

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1. cleric said

   on May 2, 2009

   You should be able to select the format when you save the document in openoffice to save as a DOC (MS Word) file.

2. Mad Killer 05 said

   on May 4, 2009

   I don’t think there is a difference, they both save the file as .doc

   Also I don’t think you can download Office or Word for free Legaly

   Hope I Helped

3. Jallan said

   on May 7, 2009

   OpenOffice.org by default reads and saves in various open document formats.

   But it will also read most Microsoft Office formats.

   And you can save a document in Microsoft Office format by using “Save As…” in the “File” menu. A dialog box will come up, in which you can select the type of file in which you wish to save, usually the most modern Microsoft file available.

   So you already have an application which can convert OpenOffice.org documents to Microsoft Word documents, namely OpenOffice.org itself.

   A user of Microsoft Office can also download and install the Sun ODF Plug-in from which allows Microsoft Office to both read and write in OpenOffice.org formats.

   Of course, occasionally files will not convert exactly. So you might also download and install the free Microsoft Office readers from so you can assure yourself that if there are any differences in files you have converted to Microsoft Office files, the differences don’t matter.

   I’ve been using OpenOffice.org both a home and at work since OpenOffice.org 1.1 and haven’t yet encountered any difference I couldn’t work around.

   I don’t believe there is anywhere where you can legally obtain a free copy of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word. But you don’t need it.