Converting and opening legacy files
Rescued from Oblivion
Can documents from the past 20 years still be opened easily today? The Linux Magazine team rummaged through some old hard disk drives and asked readers for legacy files. The documents we found caused a couple of surprises.
Everyone who was wise enough to make the move to Linux in the mid-1990s tended to write their letters and papers in StarOffice. At the time, no other alternatives provided such a broad range of functions, and it was available for free to non-commercial users. However, anyone wanting to open files that were created back then now faces a problem: OpenOffice and LibreOffice, which are based on the source code published by StarOffice around the turn of the millennium, refuse to cooperate.
In fact, in the history of the two office packages, the file format changed twice. The first OpenOffice in 2002 threw the StarOffice proprietary file format out the window and used its proprietary, but open, format named OpenOffice.org XML. The extension for text documents was SXW.
However, since OpenOffice 2, the standardized Open Document Format is now used, and text documents have an ODT extension. OpenOffice 2 was the last version that could still read and convert the old StarOffice documents with SDW extensions. Anyone wanting to save old letters in the modern era must therefore install OpenOffice 2 once again (Figure 1).
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.