I need to get to Word documents on personal laptop; work copy is expired
November 12, 2018 5:34 PM Subscribe
This is probably ragingly simple, but I lost Microsoft/Office 365 when my job was eliminated.
We got five licenses each to use wherever we wanted. Now I am severed from that job, and have lost my access.
I know about Open Office, but I need to cut and paste a document into an email and of course, Microsoft won't let me since it's expired. (Not to mention the other Word docs saved on my desktop.)
It also won't let me save it as Open Office.
Nor do I wish to take chance with some sketchy Microsoft imitation warez since viruses and such freak me out.
Is there anything I can do to get my documents (besides pay for the subscription myself--$69.99/year)?
I apologize if I've really overlooked something. It must be a simple fix.
We got five licenses each to use wherever we wanted. Now I am severed from that job, and have lost my access.
I know about Open Office, but I need to cut and paste a document into an email and of course, Microsoft won't let me since it's expired. (Not to mention the other Word docs saved on my desktop.)
It also won't let me save it as Open Office.
Nor do I wish to take chance with some sketchy Microsoft imitation warez since viruses and such freak me out.
Is there anything I can do to get my documents (besides pay for the subscription myself--$69.99/year)?
I apologize if I've really overlooked something. It must be a simple fix.
A personal Office 365 account is $6.99/month if you can swing that. Or you can see if a local library has Office if you can get the files on a thumb drive.
posted by advicepig at 5:40 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by advicepig at 5:40 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
If your laptop is a Mac, you can open word docs in the TextEdit app.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 5:40 PM on November 12, 2018
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 5:40 PM on November 12, 2018
There's some important detail missing from your problem description. OpenOffice (preferably LibreOffice these days) opens .doc files just fine.
posted by cfraenkel at 5:41 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by cfraenkel at 5:41 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Oh, sorry, I thought I said that. It's on the desktop of my personal laptop.
I've saved to Google/Gmail drive before, but have no clue how to ambulate this document over to there.
posted by intrepid_simpleton at 5:41 PM on November 12, 2018
I've saved to Google/Gmail drive before, but have no clue how to ambulate this document over to there.
posted by intrepid_simpleton at 5:41 PM on November 12, 2018
Response by poster: cfraenkel what's missing?
posted by intrepid_simpleton at 5:43 PM on November 12, 2018
posted by intrepid_simpleton at 5:43 PM on November 12, 2018
Something that makes Open Office (or Google Docs, either one) not work as a solution. You haven't provided whatever detail is making this not a solution.
posted by cfraenkel at 5:45 PM on November 12, 2018
posted by cfraenkel at 5:45 PM on November 12, 2018
If it's on your desktop, go into Google drive, click "new" (upper left) and click "file upload"
Or, create a new Google doc, then click file>open>upload and browse your computer.
posted by lyssabee at 5:46 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Or, create a new Google doc, then click file>open>upload and browse your computer.
posted by lyssabee at 5:46 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
What’s missing is if you tried to open the .doc or .docx file in Open/Libre Office. That should work fine, and if it doesn’t telling us what happens/how it fails will also be useful info.
Google docs should also be able to open it, as should TextEdit.
If all those fail, something weird is going on, but there are most likely still ways to get the text you need, they are just more obtuse and harder to talk you through (pandoc, digging through the xml of a .docx, etc.)
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:48 PM on November 12, 2018
Google docs should also be able to open it, as should TextEdit.
If all those fail, something weird is going on, but there are most likely still ways to get the text you need, they are just more obtuse and harder to talk you through (pandoc, digging through the xml of a .docx, etc.)
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:48 PM on November 12, 2018
As for your Google Docs comment. You don't save *TO* Google/GDrive (that only works if you already have it open somewhere, in which case you've already opened the file.) You open the Google Docs word processor and upload the file from your local harddrive from within the Google application.
posted by cfraenkel at 5:48 PM on November 12, 2018
posted by cfraenkel at 5:48 PM on November 12, 2018
What’s missing is if you tried to open the .doc or .docx file in Open/Libre Office.
To clarify -- you may not be able to make this work by double-clicking the document (it may give you the "Hey MS Word is expired, drop dead" message) but you should be bale to install Open Office and from within the program go to File - Open and open the file from there. If that is not working, please explain what the error.fail mode is?
posted by jessamyn at 5:51 PM on November 12, 2018 [6 favorites]
To clarify -- you may not be able to make this work by double-clicking the document (it may give you the "Hey MS Word is expired, drop dead" message) but you should be bale to install Open Office and from within the program go to File - Open and open the file from there. If that is not working, please explain what the error.fail mode is?
posted by jessamyn at 5:51 PM on November 12, 2018 [6 favorites]
Best answer: you should be bale to install Open Office and from within the program go to File - Open and open the file from there.
You should also be able to right-click on the file and choose Open Office or Libre Office via the Open With... menu item.
posted by flabdablet at 6:19 PM on November 12, 2018
You should also be able to right-click on the file and choose Open Office or Libre Office via the Open With... menu item.
posted by flabdablet at 6:19 PM on November 12, 2018
If you have Windows, the easiest way to install LibreOffice is via ninite.com.
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 6:24 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
OpenOffice loves Word documents, and is free. Google Docs as well, of course, as has been mentioned above.
Because Word is the world's default word processor, applications capable of opening Word files are extremely common. Even though OpenOffice has its own format, it will happily open and save in Word 2007+ format (the current default).
If you really insist on using Word, a month or two of Office 365 seems reasonable.
posted by lhauser at 6:48 PM on November 12, 2018
Because Word is the world's default word processor, applications capable of opening Word files are extremely common. Even though OpenOffice has its own format, it will happily open and save in Word 2007+ format (the current default).
If you really insist on using Word, a month or two of Office 365 seems reasonable.
posted by lhauser at 6:48 PM on November 12, 2018
Best answer: Have you tried the free online version of Word?
posted by sageleaf at 7:08 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by sageleaf at 7:08 PM on November 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Why not sign up for a free 1 month trial of Office 365, cut and paste whatever it is you need and cancel the trial before your month is up?
posted by reformedjerk at 7:33 PM on November 12, 2018
posted by reformedjerk at 7:33 PM on November 12, 2018
Just to clarify a bit of the above, if you do decide to install another office suite you should install LibreOffice, not OpenOffice. You can also use flabdablet's link above.
It's quite good and will open your Word files without you converting them first.
(LibreOffice and today's OpenOffice are both continuations of the old OpenOffice.org project. Libre is more frequently updated and has more file saving capabilities, among other things.)
posted by trig at 11:13 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's quite good and will open your Word files without you converting them first.
(LibreOffice and today's OpenOffice are both continuations of the old OpenOffice.org project. Libre is more frequently updated and has more file saving capabilities, among other things.)
posted by trig at 11:13 PM on November 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by lyssabee at 5:37 PM on November 12, 2018