Office replacement that can convert Vista files?

February 3, 2008 12:00 PM

Replacement for Office that can read Vista files?

I am a part-time instructor. When my home computer died, I lost my home copy of Microsoft Office 2003. New copies of Office 2003 are shockingly expensive.

The pain and alienation of using Vista in my classroom finally drove me to the loving arms of OpenOffice for home use, but I have a problem. I have to open Vista files created by my students, because the school's lab computers use Vista. I can't seem to find a converter.

In addition, OpenOffice doesn't always play nice with some of my old document formatting.

Is there a better opensource office suite that could also read Vista files? Do I need to suck it up and re-buy Office 2003 so that I can install that converter?

posted by answergrape to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

What's a Vista file? Do you mean Office 2007?

There are free viewers for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Microsoft's web site.
posted by grouse at 12:05 PM on February 3, 2008

I assume that when you write "Vista files," you mean files created with one of the Office 2007 applications, like Word. If that is indeed the case, you can use Microsoft's Word Viewer to open and convert the files.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:11 PM on February 3, 2008

I'm a staff member at a large university in the midwest, and we get all of our microsoft products deeply discounted under our Microsoft Campus Agreement, IIRC, I paid $25 for my copy of Office 2k7. You should check to see if your school has a similar program.
posted by Oktober at 12:15 PM on February 3, 2008

AbiWord or Google Docs might be able to read them.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:16 PM on February 3, 2008

Buying Office 2003 won't get you anywhere, since the new format (.docx) is used only in Word 2007.

In addition to the solutions others have mentioned, you could just ask your students to send you the files as .doc or .pdf (those options are available through "Save As"; they would need to download the PDF plugin, though).
posted by lunchbox at 12:26 PM on February 3, 2008

Office 2007 (what you're calling 'Vista') lets users save as the old .doc instead of .docx, which opens with many things. Tell them to use "Save As -> Word 97-2003 Document" instead of "Save," which will make it a .doc format that many programs can open, and that .docx isn't yet an accepted standard, so they shouldn't send it to you... or anyone, really.
posted by fogster at 12:40 PM on February 3, 2008

Best answer: You can use Novell's OpenOffice.OpenXML Translator to open the Office 2007 formats in OpenOffice.
posted by zsazsa at 12:47 PM on February 3, 2008

Response by poster: I do tell them to save them in the old file format. The forget this almost immediately. I don't have the Office suite on my home machine at all, and I'm trying to figure out a convenient way to keep it that way.

I went to the Novell site and downloaded the Translator file, it is ask me to find a package manager...which I don't seem to have.


1. Save the downloaded odfconverter-1.1-7.oxt file to disk.
2. In OpenOffice.org, click Tools > Package Manager, then click Add.
3. Browse to the location of the odfconverter-1.1-7.oxt file, then select the file.
4. Click Open.

Note: Files with a .oxt extension are currently referenced as "UNO Package Bundles" in OpenOffice.org, although not all .oxt files are UNO files.

5. Restart OpenOffice.org.

It's making my head hurt.... and I'm sure that it's obvious to someone that knows more then me.
posted by answergrape at 4:32 PM on February 3, 2008

Response by poster: I do tell them to save them in the old file format. They forget this almost immediately. I don't have the Office suite on my home machine at all, and I'm trying to figure out a convenient way to keep it that way.

I went to the Novell site and downloaded the Translator file, but it ask me to find a package manager...which I don't seem to have.


1. Save the downloaded odfconverter-1.1-7.oxt file to disk.
2. In OpenOffice.org, click Tools > Package Manager, then click Add.
3. Browse to the location of the odfconverter-1.1-7.oxt file, then select the file.
4. Click Open.

Note: Files with a .oxt extension are currently referenced as "UNO Package Bundles" in OpenOffice.org, although not all .oxt files are UNO files.

5. Restart OpenOffice.org.

It's making my head hurt.... and I'm sure that it's obvious to someone that knows more then me.
posted by answergrape at 4:33 PM on February 3, 2008

Response by poster: Mefites are helpful, even to the inept such as myself. Thanks Mefi!
posted by answergrape at 7:15 PM on February 3, 2008