Word docx file conversion and saving problems

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Level 1

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Word docx file conversion and saving problems

I've recently switched back to Mac after many years as a Windows user. I was delighted to be able to open my Word documents in TextEdit, but have had to reformat certain parts of the documents (specifically, bullets, tabs, and wrap to page) EVERY TIME I open the document. These are not saved in the file. I'm happy to change the format of the documents to rtf or whatever to keep the changes, but can't figure out how to do that either. The ultimate format for these docs is PDFs, so I don't really wish to buy MS Office for Mac. I can't find anything about this in TextEdit help.

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jul 8, 2013 2:48 PM

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Answer 1

macjack

Level 10

111,168 points

Jul 8, 2013 2:54 PM in response to juliescribe

You can save them as PDF by opening in Preview and choose File menu > Print. Then save as PDF.

But you ought to be able to save as PDF in Word?

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Answer 2

juliescribe Author

Level 1

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Jul 8, 2013 3:21 PM in response to macjack

Saving as PDF is not a problem in TextEdit. The problem is when I go back to the original file to make changes and the formatting is all messed up again. The file is a resume that I'm tweaking and saving as a PDF to send to émigrés and I don't want to have to re-set the bullets and tabs every time I open it to edit the text and save a new PDF.

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Answer 3

Jul 8, 2013 3:42 PM in response to macjack

In support of your advice ....

Preview will open directly .doc/.docx Word files. The path to PDF can also be through the Export facility.

Preview is only as good as Pages when attempting to open Word documents. If the OP has complicated Word documents that will not open with Preview, then a suggestion is to download and install the free LibreOffice 4.x (libreoffice.org) application. This will certainly open Word documents.

Rather than learn LibreOffice just to convert PDF, the OP can use the following Terminal command:

Terminal:

/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --headless -convert-to pdf:writer_pdf_Export sample.docx

This will write out a PDF of the input file to the current directory. Providing *.doc or *.docx on the command-line will convert all files matching this description to their PDF counter-parts. There is a --outdir argument that given a path to a directory, will place the resulting PDF there for improved organization.

The above command does not visibly launch LibreOffice. The only output is a single line to the terminal indicating that the conversion has taken place.

Cheers.

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Answer 4

juliescribe Author

Level 1

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Jul 14, 2013 4:47 PM in response to juliescribe

I installed and imported the document into LibreOffice as you recommended. Although it took a little time for me to get up-to-speed on using it, this seemed like the best approach. Thanks.

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Answer 5

Jul 15, 2013 1:56 PM in response to juliescribe

Glad to help. Thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities.

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