Office-compatibility torture test

In InfoWorld’s tests using complex Word and Excel documents, OpenOffice.org 3.1 failed to deliver on its promise of better Microsoft Office interoperability, severely mangling our Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel test data files. By stark contrast, SoftMaker Office showed excellent compatibility with Office 2003 file formats, making it a safe choice for heterogeneous environments — at least where external data access wasn’t a priority. Neither OpenOffice.org nor SoftMaker Office was able to preserve links to an external SQL data source in imported Microsoft Excel documents. (See the review, “The better Office alternative: SoftMaker Office bests OpenOffice.org.”)

The three images below show the identical document section rendered under Microsoft Word 2010 (in compatibility mode), OpenOffice Writer 3.1, and TextMaker 2009, respectively. Notice how OpenOffice mangled the hanging indent in the bulleted list, while Word and TextMaker rendered the list correctly. (Click each image for a closer look.)

Here’s another series of screen images showing the identical document sections. Notice how OpenOffice Writer 3.1 (second image) has distorted the AutoShape drawing, while Word (first image) and TextMaker (third image) had no trouble rendering the same object. (Click each image for a closer look.)

Again, this is the same section of the document. Here, both OpenOffice (second image) and TextMaker (third image) had trouble maintaining the bold/non-bold relationship between the table header and contents, as shown in Word in the first screen image. This was the only noticeable rendering error with TextMaker 2008. (Click each image for a close-up.)

These images show the carnage from saving a file to Word 2003 format from within OpenOffice Writer 3.1. Notice how the AutoShape rendering errors from the OpenOffice import filter have been preserved as a permanent part of the document, even when viewed from within Microsoft Word (first and second images). By contrast, the third screen image shows the same document after being resaved from within TextMaker 2008. There was no change to the object, and it continued to render correctly when brought back into Word for editing. (Click the images for closer views.)

Finally, these last three images show what happens when you import the same file in Office 2007 (Open XML, .docx) format. OpenOffice Writer completely lost track of the embedded charts and drawings, reducing them to gibberish at the top of the document (first and second images). By contrast, the beta release of TextMaker 2009 (third image) successfully imported and rendered the entire contents of the Office 2007-formatted Word document. (Click for close-ups.)

Return to the review, “The better Office alternative: SoftMaker Office bests OpenOffice.org.”