Can Word open a .odt file?

Once your correspondent joins the 21st century and gets rid of their ancient software

I know this reply is a long time after the original message, but I just ran across this thread and couldn't resist the opportunity to congratulate the person who posted the statement quoted above!

When I was a young idealist, I used this very same argument all the time (well, mine was slightly different because it was still the 20th century back then, but the essential thought was the same), so it warms my heart to see someone else using it.

Of course, I was eventually forced to grow and mature until I could admit that in the real world, not everyone has a choice what software they are using.  They may be stuck by an institutional (government, corporate, or other entity) policy, the limitations of a publicly accessible computer, restrictions on what software they're allowed to install and run on school-owned equipment, and/or simple budget constraints at home (or other perfectly valid reasons).  In addition, many users to not have the necessary skills to remove an obsolete version of an office suite (or anything else, for that matter) in order to replace it with something else (that they probably have no idea exists, let alone where to find it or how to get it.)

And now, with all of that said, I use LibreOffice4.1 at home and Office2010 at work.  When I have LibreOffice4.1 save a document as directed by the message I'm replying to, Office2010 does not open CORRECTLY.  Oh, it looks pretty much like I expect, bit Office2010 has removed all of the style names and calls everything 'Normal' although the formatting of the original styles remains.  That really doesn't sound like a very good way to share work on a document!  Of course, both development teams will likely point their fingers at the other, claiming that the other does something incorrectly, when the truth is likely that BOTH are doing thing incorrectly.

Ahem.  Sorry, I seem to have gone on a bit of a rant there.  The totally idealistic and unrealistic thoughts that lead to statements like the one I quoted really bother me.  Especially since so many people in the largest, most powerful software companies seem to actually believe things like that.

There are two areas of focus on compatibility in your message. One is file format compatibility and the other is feature set/interface parity.

While you are using LibreOffice 4 and Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows, and this is a Mac forum, we can still include Mac Word in this thread because the issues are the same.

There is probably a combination of file formats and settings that will work well for you when round-tripping documents between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.

LibreOffice is based on the old (.odt) file format and its feature set is roughly equivalent to Word 95-97. LibreOffice uses conversion routines to produce OOXML or the older (.doc) file formats. Because the LibreOffice developers have done a lot of work on bringing LibreOffice up to date with OOXML (.docx) file format, I recommend this format when round-tripping files between LibreOffice and current Microsoft Word versions (2010, 2011, 2013 and the next new version for Mac when it comes out). There may be times when sharing using the old (.doc) format works better for a given document, so if OOXML doesn't work for you, then(.doc) remains an alternative.

Current Microsoft Office is based on the current OOXML standard open file format (.docx) and has had many features added and modified since 1997. Because OOXML is the current standard, I recommend saving in this format as the first choice, and again you have(.doc) format as an alternative.

Files saved by LibreOffice will open in "Compatibility Mode" regardless of file format in Microsoft Word because LibreOffice's feature set is not identical to Microsoft Word's. To keep the interface and feature set behavior as close as possible to each other, Microsoft Word can be configured to act like previous versions.

On the Mac, go to Word > Preferences > Compatibility. Click the pop-up for Recommended Options for and choose Microsoft Word 6.0/97. I think this option would be the most similar to the LibreOffice behaviors.

On Word for Windows, go to File > Options > Advanced and you will find a similar setting:

In Microsoft Word you can turn compatibility options on and off individually until you arrive at your own ideal combination for working with LibreOffice. If there is a particular combination of settings you find work best, please post them in a reply so that others can give them a try.

You appear to be a bit off here.  Just because OpenDocument was developed first does not mean that it is an old file format or in any way obsolete.  It is unfortunate that Microsoft chose to design another XML format rather than adopting OpenDocument and then contributing to developing it.  But, that is what happened and now we have two formats to worry about.

I realize that this is a Microsoft forum, however there is no reason for you to be disingenuous and provide disinformation to bad mouth other file formats.  To say that OpenDocument has been "discontinued" appears to be incorrect unless you have something to backup this claim, we have to presume that it is inaccurate.

Incidentally, you mention by reference the practice of storing old word processing files in editable format.  This probably isn't really a good practice since word processing formats change and are not always compatible.

Thanks for the reply but this is an unprofessional answer that seems to be promoting Microsoft word.