WordPerfect Office

Opening and saving documents

This section was created to answer your frequently asked questions about opening and saving Microsoft Word documents in WordPerfect.

Opening Microsoft Word documents

When opening a Microsoft Word file in WordPerfect, are most Microsoft Word features supported?

Problem

Microsoft Word and WordPerfect have similarities, but because Microsoft Word is a proprietary file format, it’s sometimes difficult to precisely convert all aspects of a Microsoft Word document to WordPerfect. It’s also difficult to convert features found in a Microsoft Word document that are not available in WordPerfect. If WordPerfect encounters an unknown element, it converts the documents based on its interpretation of what the document should look like.

Solution

In general, you’ll find that basic documents, such as letters and memos without macros, graphics, or detailed tables, are successfully converted with minimal inconsistencies. More complex documents, however, may not be correctly converted from Microsoft Word. For more information about how WordPerfect converts Microsoft Word documents, see “Reference: Moving between Microsoft Word and WordPerfect.” The section provides you with detailed notes about how WordPerfect opens Microsoft Word documents.

In addition, you can now open Microsoft Word Open XML documents (.docx) and Microsoft Word Open XML Macro-enabled documents (.docm) in WordPerfect.

More information

Opening Microsoft Word files in Microsoft Word mode

When I open a Microsoft Word file, why doesn’t it open in Microsoft Word mode?

Answer

When you open a Microsoft Word file in WordPerfect, it opens in the workspace you have selected. Regardless of the type of file you open, the workspace mode specified in the Workspace manager displays. For example, if you have selected WordPerfect mode in the Workspace manager, the Microsoft Word file will open in WordPerfect mode.

If you want to open Microsoft Word files in Microsoft Word mode, you must first select the Microsoft Word option in the Workspace manager.

To choose Microsoft Word mode

1.

Click Tools Workspace manager.

Opening Microsoft Word templates in WordPerfect

Can I open Microsoft Word templates in WordPerfect?

Answer

No, you can’t open Microsoft Word templates (.dot files) in WordPerfect because they are not supported.

Microsoft Word and WordPerfect have similarities, but they are proprietary applications that are built using different architectures. This makes it difficult to successfully convert templates.

Opening a Microsoft Word document that contains a table of contents

When I open a Microsoft Word document in WordPerfect, the table of contents displays incorrect page numbers. Why does this happen?

Problem

WordPerfect displays the table of contents as it was displayed in Microsoft Word. Converting from Microsoft Word, however, may have shifted the document’s contents. For example, a topic that was on page 7 in the Microsoft Word document may be on page 9 in the WordPerfect document. Simply opening a file does not update the table of contents, causing page numbers to display incorrectly.

Solution

To correctly display the table of contents numbering, you need to update the table of contents in WordPerfect.

To update a table of contents

1.

Click Tools Reference Table of contents.

Saving to the Microsoft Word format

When saving a WordPerfect document to the Microsoft Word format, are most WordPerfect features supported?

Problem

Microsoft Word and WordPerfect have similarities but, because Microsoft Word is a proprietary file format, it’s sometimes difficult to precisely convert all aspects of a WordPerfect document to Microsoft Word. It’s also difficult to convert features found in a WordPerfect document that are not available in Microsoft Word. WordPerfect converts the documents based on its interpretation of what the document should look like.

Solution

In general, you’ll find that basic documents, such as letters and memos without macros, graphics, or detailed tables, are successfully converted with minimal inconsistencies. More complex documents, however, may not be correctly converted to Microsoft Word. For more information about how WordPerfect converts documents to Microsoft Word, see “Reference: Moving between Microsoft Word and WordPerfect.” The section provides you with detailed notes about how WordPerfect saves documents to Microsoft Word.

In addition, improvements were made in WordPerfect X4 to converting the following features:

Renaming filename extensions

I changed a Microsoft Word file’s .doc file extension to .wpd to open it in WordPerfect. But when I try to open the file, WordPerfect gives me an error message that the file is in an invalid format. Why?

Problem

When you change only the filename extension, you aren’t changing the file format or converting the content to WordPerfect. That’s why you are unable to open the Microsoft Word file in WordPerfect.

Solution

To open a Microsoft Word document in WordPerfect, you must open the file in WordPerfect and specify that it’s a Microsoft Word document. The opening process converts the file to the WordPerfect format. Once the file is open in WordPerfect, you can save the file as a WordPerfect or Microsoft Word document.

To open a Microsoft Word document in WordPerfect

1.

Click File Open.

More information

If you have to convert a batch of Microsoft Word files, WordPerfect has another option for converting multiple files simultaneously: the WordPerfect Conversion Utility. It can convert Microsoft Word files to one of five WordPerfect file formats. For more information about the WordPerfect Conversion Utility, see “Converting batches of Microsoft Word files to WordPerfect.”

Opening and saving documents