Has anyone found that a file downloaded and opened in linux open office has characters moved around and that the same file downloaded in Windows and opened in ms office doesn't have the same characters moved about?

Yeah, it's just a compatibility thing between the ODF files and the doc files.

You could just download OpenOffice for Windows if you need to have the documents on there.

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Thanks!

installing the Microsoft fonts takes care of this - most of the time-

and most of the time it is the "odd" formatting in the MS doc .

No problem!

In my experience, some of the more advanced formatting in document files (nested bullet and numbered lists, outlines, and the like) do not always translate transparently between OO Writer and Word. I've had it become garbled in both directions (Word to OOo and OOo to Word).

Spreadsheets translate just fine in my experience, but I don't have to use fancy features such as pie charts and the like--just maintain spreadsheets.

I haven't done much to move back and forth between Powerpoint and Impress, but I've never had a *.ppt file fail to open in OOo.