Apr
9
How To Get .docx Working in Linux
April 9, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 5 Comments
Posted in Applications, How to..., Installation
Occasionally I receive a file in .docx format, which for me was useless; and I've had to ask the sender to give me the document in .doc format instead. However, there's a better solution for those of us who encounter the .docx format. It does take a couple of minutes to set up, but is easy to use thereafter.
There are two ways to do this. The "Long" way and the "Short" way.
The Long Way:
We'll need three tools:
- OpenOffice. The premier open source office suite.
- An odf converter. That's what facilitates the .docx capability.
- Alien. This is an application that converts archive formats. It allows us to convert packages from other distributions to our format; (I'm using Ubuntu Linux) and then install it.
First, we can get the odf converter here:
OpenOffice.OpenXML Translator 1.1.0
In my case I would use odf-converter-1.1-7.i586.rpm (and will use alien to convert it for my Ubuntu Linux platform). To download the converter, I had to create a username and password.
I'm pretty sure that the majority of us may already have open office installed, so we just need to install alien like this:
sudo apt-get install alien
Now we just need to use alien to convert the file:
alien -ct odf-converter-1.1-7.i586.rpm
Extract the .tgz file you are left with and (within the extracted directory):
sudo cp usr/lib/ooo-2.0/program/OdfConverter /usr/lib/openoffice/program/<
sudo cp usr/lib/ooo-2.0/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Filter/MOOXFilter_cpp.xcu /usr/lib/openoffice/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Filter/
sudo cp usr/lib/ooo-2.0/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Types/MOOXTypeDetection.xcu /usr/lib/openoffice/share/registry/modules/org/openoffice/TypeDetection/Types
However, you'll want to use the short, easy method below! ;)
The Short (Recommend) Way:
There is a plugin available for openoffice that will convert the format so that we can open .docx files.
OpenOffice.org OpenXML Translator
From the download page:
"The OpenXML Translator provides support for opening and saving Microsoft* OpenXML-formatted word processing documents (.docx) in OpenOffice.org."
After the download, just double click the .deb file and start openoffice. You should be good to go!
You did choose the "Short Way" didn't you? :)
I really hope this helps someone.
Related posts:
- Top 12 Best Games for Ubuntu Linux – #11 Alien Arena 2007
- The Simple Way to Get 5.1 Surround Sound Audio Working in Ubuntu
- Easy PDF Creation in Ubuntu Linux.
- Converting VMware Images to VirtualBox – A Simple Method
- Digital Forensics in Linux – Reclaiming Data Off a Failed Hard Drive.

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
[...] Note: Untuk paket rpm dapat anda download dari situs novell kemudian baca posting ini. [...]
Both the long and the short way work very well!
why did you include the conversion step in the long way provided ubuntu comes with rpm archive support out-of-the-box?
@teo constantinescu
Because this was written for an older version of Ubuntu. ;) :)
Also, on Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10, I have no RPM support.
As I understand, to install packages, they should be in .deb (not .rpm).
by “rpm archive support” I meant the possibility of right clicking it and choosing “extract to…”. btw, I’ve tried the “long way” and it didn’t work – perhaps it doesn’t anymore with the 3.+ versions. I’ve also read that OpenOffice 3 translates the documents in open formats out of the box, which it didn’t for me. I’ve finally stumbled upon OdfConverter which seems to work fine, I think I’ll stick with it.