Articles/Converting Office2007 documents

From LUG@IITD

For those having problem when they receive docx and other office2007
formats from others you can convert them to doc, ppt etc using this
procedure.
   * Download odf-converter-1.1-7.i586.rpm for i386 systems or
odf-converter-1.1-7.x86_64.rpm for x86_64 systems.(The links are here
for these rpms http://download.go-oo.org/red-carpet/ooo-680/sled-10-sp-i586/odf-converter-1.1-7.i586.rpm
http://download.go-oo.org/red-carpet/ooo-680/sled-10-sp-x86_64/odf-converter-1.1-7.x86_64.rpm)
   * For debian based distros install the rpm package by doing this
as root: aptitude install -y rpm (do it as sudo for kubuntu, etc)
   * rpm based distro users should install sudo yum -y install cpio rpm(those wishing to "emerge" can use the equivalent package)
   * Open a console.
   * Change directory to your download directory. Depending on your
setup, it may be: cd ~/Desktop
   * To unpackage the rpm, run this command: rpm2cpio
odf-converter*rpm | cpio -ivd
   * To copy the binary run this command: sudo cp
usr/lib/ooo-2.0/program/OdfConverter /usr/bin
   * Optionally you may now delete the opt and usr directories you
just unpacked as well as the .rpm file you downloaded. However, you
may wish to keep the files under usr if you are interested in
documentation and sample OpenXML documents.
   * It needs certain library files like libtiff.so.3 by name but on
my system libtiff.so.4 was installed. So I made a link with this name.
ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3 (If he asks for some
other files like this do the same thing).

Usage

The usage is simple. To convert a .docx file (Word 2007) to a .odt
(OpenDocument Format) file, just run:
OdfConvert /i example.docx

Then, you will find the .odt file in the same directory as the .docx.
Then, open the ODF file in OpenOffice.org or your favorite office
suite.
The same procedure works for presentations also to some extent.
However, I would like to add that it is a non-free proprietary format
being touted as an "open" standard. If you are a hardliner right wing
freedom evangelist, If somebody sends it to you politely request them
for another format!

Creator: Gajendra Nand Khanna