What is the best option to open .docx, pptx files in Ubuntu LTS 8.04 ?

[Mike McMullin]

On Wed, 2008-10-08 at 16:25 -0700, NoOp wrote:
> On 10/08/2008 02:33 PM, Hal Burgiss wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 01:59:41PM -0700, NoOp wrote:
> >> 
> >> Works for me (2.4.1 Ubuntu OOo).
> >> 
> >> sudo apt-get install --reinstall openoffice.org openoffice.org-evolution
> > 
> > Just tried this, and then tried 4 different docx files. All 4 say
> > 'Read Error: Unable to read data from file' or somesuch. Fully updated
> > 8.04. These are random files from clients. If docx is "supported", its
> > not ready for prime time. This is not a huge deal for me. If I never saw
> > another docx file, I'd be tickled. I can always find other ways. Its
> > an annoyance more than anything.
> > 
> 
> docx isn't ready for primetime no matter what OS or office program you
> use, but I'll not expand on that here :-)
> 
> File a bug (please). In searching the LP OOo bug list for docx I only
> find one somewhat outdated & slightly odd bug report. See:
> 
> <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org?field.searchtext=docx&orderby=-importance&search=Search&field.status%3Alist=NEW&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITH_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITHOUT_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=CONFIRMED&field.status%3Alist=TRIAGED&field.status%3Alist=INPROGRESS&field.status%3Alist=FIXCOMMITTED&field.assignee=&field.bug_reporter=&field.omit_dupes=on&field.has_patch=&field.has_no_package=>

  There is an extension on the Novell web site for openSuSE.  One might
be able to convert it using alien.   I had to update OOo on my 11.0
system so I could now open those files, and used the extension from
Novell.