I have been preparing a large document for uni in Libre Office 6.2 with footnotes, tables etc. It looked absolutely great in Libre Office. However, when opening it in Word at uni I was shocked to see the formatting was off as were the page numberings. I had to reconfigure everything for Word since that's how my teachers will open it. They have requested it be sent as a Word doc. Of course sending it as a .pdf would have avoided this issue but that wasn't the requested format.

A few weeks ago I spent several hours trying to sort out the compatibilty issues. I tried saving the file in different formats - including .odt - but it seems that the problem was still there. I even tried lots of different programs apart from Libre Office. Still there were compabibility issues.

So I have conceded. Microsoft Word is the industry standard and the compatibility between open vs closed in this area is just not good enough. In the future I will have to write everything on LO and then tidy it up in MS Word just before submission. This is the first time in my 2+ years of using Linux that closed source has won. And it's in an area that's completely vital for my work. Shame. Well done, Microsoft. Here's hoping that at some point in the future the compability improves.

Have a look at Softmaker Freeoffice (I'm not affiliated with them).
Works well on Slackware64 current with Bob's Plasma packages.

I would say I understand your problem, but the conclusion is false. MS Office is more or less compatible with LibreOffice, so there can be things which appear differently. Unfortunately (?) my experience is: MS Office is incompatible with itself too, so opening the same document on two different computers can produce different results. I don't know if it was still valid, but it was true a few years ago - from my side it may mean you can give a doc to your teacher too and the formatting may be still different. By the way, docx is probably better (newer versions probably offer more stable reproduction).

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Thanks, I installed this on Slackware but the problem persists. Still the formatting is off.

I should note that where the formatting mainly falls over is in citations/references/footnotes. This was also noted in a comment over on alternative.to where a user said about Libre Office:

It doesn't. It does so within itself, but when opening the document in MS Word, the formatting will be off.

'More or less' compatible is not good enough. It should be exactly compatible. I realise that that's probably a very demanding task to fulfil and that I am not the one writing the software or spending hours and hours coding it, but I can still criticise its effectiveness, just as one doesn't have to be a chef to criticise bad food or a builder to criticise a badly-made wall. I have tried .docx too, and the issue is still there. I think that if one is writing a long document which does not include tables and references, one is less likely to come up with compatibility issues, but with them, it just doesn't work.

Again I have spent too much time on this today. From now on I will write my documents in LO and then submit them through MS Word, that is by far the best solution. I am annoyed and disappointed by this as an advocate for free software, but I have to face reality on this one.

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The reality is a bit different: MS did not publish the format of MS documents, therefore hard to be compatible with it. Also MS often "improves" it - without any notification, therefore really hard to follow it. This is not a problem with LibreOffice, although - for you - it looks like a problem with it.

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It is almost impossible as MS keep changing the formatting as to frustate "other office suites". As someone already remarked, the various releases of MS-Office themselves aren't compatible with each other, because of that. So Office Home Suite and Office Cloud Edition could already produce different formatting on the same document.

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pan64 and ehartman - you are both completely right. If there were office compability over all programs and OSs, MS would not retain their position as market leader.

Still, the situation is the same for me though now I can't blame LO as much. If anyone's to blame it's MS - though this doesn't change my workplan moving forwards. Thanks, all.

I completely agree with you. This is nothing more, just background info, will not help you at all.

It looks like you can mark this thread as solved (ok, not really solved, but cannot go any further).
And if you really want to say thanks (I know, no solution was given) - just click on yes.

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This is another reminder of the importance of FOSS/FLOSS. As already mentioned the problem is not with LibreOffice, the problem lies squarely at the feet of Microsoft this time. I would challenge that .pdf is the "universal" format. If they want to edit the document let them do so from the .pdf. Even scribus recommends .pdf for use with friends/colleagues that use Word. http://forums.scribus.net/index.php?topic=502.0

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FWIW, a similar discussion here
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/quest...and-ms-office/

Some interesting recommendations made there...

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My advise: if you have to deliver docx document, use MS Word. It's a bad format, it's no compatible with different versions of itself, let alone other office suites, it's closed, it's not secure, etc... but it's a requirement.
If you want to make a point, ask the recipiant to change that requirement, tell them why you would rather not use a bad document format for your work. Ask them why they insist on docx.
But when you have to deliver docx, you have to use MS Word. LO's compatibility attempts won't cut it.
The industry is moving away from docx but it will be a long process until it's complete. Until then you have to deal with those who have not catched up yet and that means you have to use MS Word.

You are right. I did similarly a couple of weeks ago for a presentation. I went into uni and used their Powerpoint to prepare something, and then just used the .pptx for the presentation itself.

As much as I would have liked to use Writer/Impress all the time, I think that, going forward, I can use Libre Office until the times comes when I have to actually submit the document, then I can tidy it up in the relevant MS product before submission.

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Lysander when you do that make sure you include this link, or create a slide if its a presentation: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ks-4175657435/
then include info about LibreOffice, FOSS/FLOSS etc... turn it into a bonus educational moment/PSA.