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I am using the older 1.3.5 verion of Crossover Office but the same problem occurs (i.e. at least for me) in the latest version. I installed MSWord 97 (which I purchased from Microsoft and own the license to) and it installed successfully.
By the way, here is Codeweaver's web site address:
I downloaded the Crossover Office User's Guide for the latest Pro
version and read through all of it. Towards the very end I found the
question and answer I was looking for. Here it is:
It's on page 177, point 8.9. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to copy and
paste the section into this letter. So I have uploaded it to my site at:
It suggests editing the support/dotwine/config file. I have done that in accordance with their instructions. But I still can't save.
I am happy to report that MSWord97 works fine, I can configure it
properly and it prints fine. But when I click on File, Save (or on the
toolbar) or on Save As, Word just crashes. Period. It crashes instantly.
I never have a chance to do anything after that. That's the crux of the
matter.
I would be very grateful to someone on the forum if they could help me
troubleshoot this. I have looked in vain for a solution in Google and on
the Codeweaver support and forum page. No answer.
I might add that I've considered upgrading and downloaded the latest Crossover Office Pro version and had the exact same problem with Word97, i.e. I could not save any documents. It looks like the problem is the same on both the old and new Crossover Office. I understand that this is probably a file permission or configuration issue but I've just reached the end of my technical abilities.
Well, practically everyone will ask why you are not using Open Office ? This will happily read/write/save Word97 .doc files as well as use open document format natively, and give you the option to output pdf files.
It is sad that you have paid MS all that money for inferiour software. Presumably you had a compelling reason.
I too have been the crossover/wine route, with similar mixed results.
I've found you problems more associated with faulty/buggy installations, or trying to set up an ntfs partition as the pseudo C: drive.
First, my thanks for responding and for your query.
OpenOffice is a superb office suite and is great for writing documents for other people using OpenOffice. Perhaps someday it will be the standard and we won't have to worry about MS Office compatibility any more.
However, in the present situation this is definitely not the case. I spent weeks on a major book in Open Office. I saved it in OO's native odt format, then converted it to MSWord97 format. I learned to regret it afterward. As soon as I opened it in MSWord XP I could see that I had a lot of work ahead of me. Sure, the changes were more or less minor (formatting, misalignment, an occasional font issue), but the publisher wasn't pleased or would not have been pleased. They expect the book to be in PERFECT shape and that means perfect MSWord 97 shape. And that's that. They are not interested in discussing the issue. So, I had to spend many hours correcting every little formatting error to be able to present a proper text for my publisher.
First, my thanks for responding and for your query.
De nada - however I did have suggestions for your actual problem. I have another (see end of post)
Quote:
OpenOffice is a superb office suite and is great for writing documents for other people using OpenOffice. Perhaps someday it will be the standard and we won't have to worry about MS Office compatibility any more.
I have just been testing OOo Word format for OOo 2.0 and it has been 100% comaptible with word 200 and word 95, which is all I've had access to. Unless there is very fancy formatting ... I did bullets, embedded equations and images. Things that have traditionally been problematical. And it all worked well.
Quote:
However, in the present situation this is definitely not the case. I spent weeks on a major book in Open Office. I saved it in OO's native odt format, then converted it to MSWord97 format. I learned to regret it afterward. As soon as I opened it in MSWord XP I could see that I had a lot of work ahead of me. Sure, the changes were more or less minor (formatting, misalignment, an occasional font issue), but the publisher wasn't pleased or would not have been pleased. They expect the book to be in PERFECT shape and that means perfect MSWord 97 shape. And that's that. They are not interested in discussing the issue. So, I had to spend many hours correcting every little formatting error to be able to present a proper text for my publisher.
That is certainly a compelling reason. There are some problems with this however:
Even using word under windows, it is not garanteed that all the formatting will work between two different computers. It is not even garanteed that the pages will look the same printed as they do on the screen. Even different version of MSWord do not render the pages the same all the time.
I have published commercially as well as scientifically.
All the commercial publishers I have used will only accept hardcopy, A4, single-side, double spaced, large margins, and bound. No electronic formats at all.
All the scientific journals I have used prefer LaTeX defaults (though some publications insist on their own document styles). Some will accept submissions in other formats, but it is unusual that they would end up published.
In each case, at least partly, because of the problems getting formatting to work cross-platform with wysiwyg wordprocessors.
The only time I have seen a publisher accepting only MSWord (or other stated proprietary format) it was some form of vanity publishing.
The only time I've seen work being required "ready for publication" was in a scientific journal (and hence the latex).
So it will be interesting to know which publisher this is.
That said: once the publisher has been selected, you are pretty much stuck with their rules, however mad they may seem.
Your best bet - even using MSWord Under windows, is to stick to the simplest most common fonts and styles. (Ask the publisher for a template - that's what templates are for.) Do no drawing - all images embedded whole. eep equations short and simple (or render them as graphics - Word dosn't handle equations well). Minimise formatting - the most you want would be double-column - and no text running across both. No fancy tabbing even.
That is just to make sure other windows machines with Word will get your pages the way you wrote them. (I've had ample experience of this just moving Word documents between identical machines with identical windows installations within a department. I've even saved a word document, and later opened it with the same MSWord on the same computer it was saved on, only to see the page rendered differently.)
None of this is helping with Crossover.
The thing that still sticks in mind is that word under crossover may not have permission to write to the fake C: drive - you should check that this is set up correctly.
An interesting alternative, since you only need MSWord97, is to install windows XP under QEMU. Emulation is the way to go if you only have a few apps to run.
Thank you for a very informative and professional resposne.
The "publisher" in question was not the head office but rather an editor who asked to see the manuscript in its tentative final form in MSWord format. That is why I had no choice but to convert the text from OOo to MSWord and then correct all the formatting mistakes.
Thanks again for the tip about Crossover. I realize that the issue in question is file permission. I apparently cannot save to the fake C drive. I have to save my docs somewhere in Linux. But I simply have been unable to figure out precisely what the problem is and how to solve it.
I'm guessing somewhat based on more recent WINE experience: crossover is simulating the windows API as it applies to MS Office. One of the things it needs to do this, is a linux directory that it will save files to, which the MSOffice software will refer to as C:\My Documents ... et al.
On My computer, I set up the fake C: drive to be ~/.cdrive ... A: is ~/.floppy which is a symlink to /dev/fd0 and so on. In other words, your fake C drive is normally a linux file.
However - if you have been trying to use an actual C drive for this - like an ntfs partition (possible if you dual boot with windows for eg) you may not have permission to write to it (or even the ability, in the case of ntfs).
You need to check the crossover configuration utility to find out which directories are being used for what. You can find out how to do this from the crossover FAQ.
Should it turn out to be a permission problem, it is a matter of using chmod.
The standard users manual will tell you what you need to know. See here for eg about configuring the fake C: drive. The rest of the manual is also important (if at first you don't succeed - read the manual )
I'm not trying to turn this thread into an MS compatability for OO thread, but I've also had problems converting from .odt format to .doc. It is particularly bad when using the IEEE Paper standard. MS doesn't like having the two column layout with the occational block that spans both columns. MS just doesn't handle all the attributes of frames from the .odt format.
This has been driving me nuts. Could I perhaps prevail on you to take a look at the crossover/support/dotwine/config file below and help me configure it so that I can finally save in MSWord97? I do have dual-boot with WinXP but I am NOT trying to save to XP, just to Linux. It would be very kind of you to do this. I am finally getting the general sense of what needs to be done, but it is just beyond my capabilities.
I'd check what "fake_windows" is - I'm hoping it is a symlink someplace like ~/.wine or wherever crossover keeps it's config files. (Understand I'm doing this from memory and my more recent experience is with wine.) I have this feeling that is may not be. That "Filesystem" entry looks supicious too ... "win95" is not an official fs (man mount), but it could just be indicating the windows version being faked in your default bottle.
I'd look at the manual pages you suggest, however the zipfile you linked to contains only the following file:
Code:
<?php
/***************************************************************************
* admin_userlist.php
* -------------------
* begin : Tuesday, 09 Feburary 2004
* copyright : (C) 2001 The phpBB Group
* email : support@phpbb.com
*
***************************************************************************/
I'm not trying to turn this thread into an MS compatability for OO thread, but I've also had problems converting from .odt format to .doc. It is particularly bad when using the IEEE Paper standard. MS doesn't like having the two column layout with the occational block that spans both columns. MS just doesn't handle all the attributes of frames from the .odt format.
~Justin
I get the impression this is quite a coplex document we're talking about.
It should be emphasised that Word does a spotty job of translating between different versions of itself anyway.
The fact is that OOo is much more powerful than MSWord. If you use things in OO that don't exist in Word, it won't translate well or even at all. It is not clear what can be done about that... It is unlikely there will ever be 100% compatability, even with MS-style XML. (Though, what may happen, you'll get to see what MSWord will show when you view a doc file in OO. That would be useful.)
If you must send DOC files, it is still best to stick to methods of layout etc that you would use in Word. So the only frames you should have would be graphics frames, and insert them anchored to character (that's what happens in word). I'd also write the OO document using MS fonts - and save it as DOC rather than saving as odt and converting.
Interestingly, online reviews for OO2.0 rave about the word compatibility without actually testing the ability of word to render OO created doc files.
OOo lists and faqs only cover rendering non odt formats in OOo, not a sqeek about writing non odt formats for their native processors. This would appear to be an important lapse.
Personally - I use OO2.0 without incedent for opening and editing word documents (created by word) and sending them back to be read by word. Some of them have been using insanely complex methods to write quite simple documents and it has all been fine.
An intreguing comparison: folk with proprietary products will scoot along with a legacy version (because, hey: it works) rather than spend money on the upgrade ... whereas, we find folk with Free products upgrading constantly just because they can.
Perhaps this desk-jockey will accept pdf. He only wants to look at the book after all and as a publisher he must have adobe acrobat.
Though: I've seen this with a job application CV. I had a pdf document CV and a hardcopy but the employer wanted word95 ... accepting no substitutes. OOo 1.2 (then) bullets did not render in word95 ... <sigh>.
Sometimes you just get stuck with windows like this... I used an internet cafe to make the modifications.
Last edited by Simon Bridge; 05-23-2006 at 05:55 PM.
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