Stuck with .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files? These are also called OpenXML or Microsoft Office 2007 format. Here's a way to convert them in to .doc, .xls, and .ppt (respectively) in Windows.
Don't let the name "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file format" fool you. You do not need Microsoft Office, so it works great with OpenOffice.org, Google Docs, Abiword, WordPerfect, and Microsoft Office 2003.
Installation
Just download and install Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file format. The site does not require the annoying Windows Genuine Advantage validation required for some other Microsoft downloads.
GUI conversion
Simply open the .docx, .xlsx, or .pptx document as you would any other. For example, if the document is on your desktop, just double click on it. Then, you'll see this simple dialog:
Command line conversion
While most people will use the GUI, others may want automated or batch conversions. If so, use the Windows command line with this format:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\wordconv.exe" -oice -nme <input file> <output file>
Quality of conversion
Microsoft being the OpenXML experts, the conversion was excellent and rendered well in OpenOffice.org 2.3.1. The following converted properly: the text, bold, italics, underline, typefaces changes, font sizes, character colors, paragraph indentation, paragraph alignment, highlighting, hyperlinks, bookmarks, footnotes, track changes, comments, lists, tables, picture, columns, and manual page break.
The same two problems were visible in OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 and Word 2003: the header was not aligned properly, and the embedded Excel object displays correctly but cannot be edited. OpenOffice.org complains, "Error activating object: General OLE error." Word 2003 complains, "The server application, source, or item cannot be found." I assume they are both looking for an Excel 2007 installation.
Here is the original reference document shown in Word 2007:
Here is the converted .doc document viewed in OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 with the Calibri font installed:
Compatibility with Linux through Wine
Sorry, this method doesn't yet work on Linux with Wine 0.9.52. The GUI appears to work but produces nothing. The command line method crashes Wine.
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office12/
wine wordconv.exe -oice -nme OpenXML_text_reference_document.docx test.doc
fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x110000 1 (nil) 0
fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x110000 1 (nil) 0
fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x110000 1 (nil) 0
fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x110000 1 (nil) 0
fixme:win:WIN_CreateWindowEx Parent is HWND_MESSAGE
err:x11drv:X11DRV_CreateWindow invalid window width -1611949332
err:x11drv:X11DRV_CreateWindow invalid window height -264947
fixme:ole:PropVariantCopy Invalid element type: 12l
fixme:advapi:CheckTokenMembership ((nil) 0x147618 0x34f9d0) stub!
fixme:advapi:CheckTokenMembership ((nil) 0x147618 0x34f9d0) stub!
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4 comments:
How would you like to see embedded objects handled in this case?
Anonymous:
I was writing from a descriptive rather than prescriptive point of view. However, the end user does not care what type of object it is: he just cares about using it easily, so I suggest the embedded Excel object should become an object that Calc can seamlessly edit. Am I missing something?
Andrew
Useless with Vista - don't waste your time.
I tried to get the command line version you show running in DOS, I get nothing. No feedback, no error messages, and no output file. I'm personally interested in getting the powerpoint converter to work in an automated fashion like this, but I couldn't get either word or powerpoint to work.
Did you have to do any special setup, or have anything else in particular installed to get this working?
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