Once you have installed OpenOffice, you need to configure 2 settings.

1) Language - By default Open Office spell checks as American Spelling.

2) File Types (When Saving) - By default Open Office saves word, excel and power point documents as it’s own format.

What you want to do is to save the file types appropriately so they are compatible with Microsoft Office.

Setting up the Language

The first step is to open Writer then click > Tools > Options and refer to the diagram below…

Once you configured the language, click on Load/Save > General.

The next step is to set the file types for each application. I.E: You want Word Documents to save as .doc not .odt - Microsoft Word does not support .odt, etc. Now once you set these file types, Open Office will save all documents to support Microsoft Office by default.

For each application, change the format. Refer to the diagrams below…

For Word

For Excel

For Powerpoint

When you have configured everything, hit Ok, restart Open Office and you’re done!