Problem with Libre Office and word .doc;!..

[tony sayer]

Wonder if theres anyone around who uses this program at all?..

Friend of the family uses Libre Office for most all word processing she needs except that shes been sent a doc thats like a "template" where you can or should be able to change the text thats in a differing colour. There are of course some graphics and logo's on that but there are defined or seemingly defined areas where you can add text or alter same.

Now I have a rather olde version of wurd and that seems to do the necessary. However in Libre Office it seems to treat it like a graphic image. If you for instance right click your mouse a "crossed hairs" cursor with small arrows on each part of the cross comes up unlike the single straight upright bar that looks like a text editor one.

Anyone any ideas what you alter in Libre office or is this a file compatibility problem?.

Cheers..

[airsmoothed]

I've not tried opening a Word form (assuming that's what it is) in LO, but it does seem all these free Office alternatives have some formatting quirks. FWIW I find IBM Lotus Symphony more compatible then OO or LO, so that might be worth a bash as a last resort.

[Naich]

I don't know if it would work or not, but you could try uploading it to Google Docs and then downloading it as an .odf file. Or you could try this:

[Owain]

Try double or multiple clicking on it - if it's a text box I think OOO (and thus LO) may treat it as a floatable graphic on first click, and need more clicks to get 'inside' it to the text

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

That sounds not far off the mark.. I find trying to get either WORD OR open office to do anything 'inside a box' to be..arcane at the best.

I can see why SWMBO likes Quark..EVERYTHING is a 'box' and that's how you do the entire process..whether it's a graphic or editable text.

Word processors like WORD are in a sense the worst of all solutions: They do everything badly.

'Jack of all trades, master of none'

I either want pure editable text, with the minimum of formatting, or something that is formatted for HTML or really laid out properly, like Quark..