[wineinthepark]

Hi,

I've just bought a Samsung NP350 laptop with windows 8    and it has been restored to factory settings (I'm going to put anti-virus on it!) and it doesn't have Office installed, in particular Word 

 

I had Word installed on an old P.C. that died, and managed to get a new P.C.(seemingly lacking Word) and using a USB which had my old-P.C. Word docs on it, put my Word docs on the new P.C. so that I can work on them (Just saving to the desktop).

However, this doesn't seem to be possible with my laptop as my USB's docs come up with 'open with/using' on the screen, and Word isn't an option and notepad (which is installed) translates them into rubbish!

 

Is there a way to put my old Word docs onto my laptop so that I can continue to write to them, or do I have to shell out for MS Office?

Can I connect my new P.C. to the laptop to move them over- though the P.C. uses an old windows version and Win8 is famously non-helpful?

(I don't have any of the original Office discs anymore)

 

Any suggestions would be great!

Many Thanks in advance!

Edited by wineinthepark, 13 January 2016 - 09:40 AM.

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Get the free Open Office

 

https://www.openoffice.org/

 

or LibreOffice

 

https://www.libreoff...reoffice-fresh/

 

Either will allow you to open, edit, create Word docs.

[RKinner]

Get the free Open Office

 

https://www.openoffice.org/

 

or LibreOffice

 

https://www.libreoff...reoffice-fresh/

 

Either will allow you to open, edit, create Word docs.

[paws]

 Hi wineinthepark, and welcome to our forum.

In addition to the excellent advice from Rkinner above, if you don't want to download and install extra applications then Wordpad which is part of the Win 8/8.1 operating system can be used.

It is a simple text editor type word processor that will open your Word docs, but as its a "simplified application" if you have some "fancy formatting" in the docs you want to open then this fancy formatting may not render correctly. ( more normal formatting should be fine.)

Here's how to start wordpad
hold down the Windows key and press r
type
wordpad
press enter
and away you go.
On some computers you may need to type wordpad.exe rather than wordpad on its own.

Let us know if this does the trick for you
Regards
paws

[wineinthepark]

Thanks guys!

 

I was looking to move Word docs I'm already using on my P.C., so wordpad isn't an option unfortunately.

 

It was easy to put them on a USB and then onto my new P.C. even though that didn't have Word installed, and was wondering if there's a way to do so onto a laptop also?

 

I will look at using open office. Just to confirm- it can be used and then if I wanted to join up with my Word docs, I could copy them across (via USB) into Word  ( literally copy+paste)?

 

W(h)ine in the park

[RKinner]

Copy and paste works well.  You can even copy the folder they are in and paste that onto the USB (assuming it has room) and it will take all of the docs with it.

 

Open Office's writer will allow you to work with them and create new (tho it likes to save in its own format tho you can change it to .doc if you do a Save As)

[paws]

I was looking to move Word docs I'm already using on my P.C., so wordpad isn't an option unfortunately.

 

Wordpad works on most Windows Pcs, its installed by default... so if you need it... its likely to be there!

Regards

paws

[wineinthepark]

 

Wordpad works on most Windows Pcs, its installed by default... so if you need it... its likely to be there!

Yes, Thanks.  Unfortunately an existing Word doc moved to notepad won't compute!  Regards!

 

You can even copy the folder they are in and paste that onto the USB (assuming it has room) and it will take all of the docs with it.

Yes I'll be looking to do that, Thanks.

I'm guessing that my P.C. had previously had Office on it and so it allowed Word docs to be move onto it (unlike my laptop)?

 

I've downloaded Open Office onto a USB and tried to transfer across to my laptop.

My laptop is asking me to 'open using', and the selection of applications don't seem to open Open Office!  Aaaagh! Should I take up fishing instead (Computers aren't my thing really...)

Many Thanks!!!!

[RKinner]

Please note that Notepad and Wordpad are two different programs.  Wordpad can usually open most docs correctly.

 

Odd.  Normally when you install Open Office it will tell windows to send certain extensions to it.  Since it didn't you can Open With, Choose Default Program, Browse, It will usually open in Program Files but it is a 32 bit program so if you have a 64 bit version of windows you will need to click on Local Disk (C:) up at the top and then on Program Files (x86).  You should find Open Office 4.  Click on it and then on Programs.  Scroll down and find swriter.  Click on it and Open.  OK.  

 

Alternatively you should be able to open your docs from Open Office, Text Document or (Writer).  File, Open.  Scroll down in the left column and find your USB drive and click on it then find your doc in the right pane and double click on it. 

[wineinthepark]

Oops, getting notepad and word pad confused! I'll try again.

 

I have found that saving saving word as notepad RTF will allow it to open on both P.C. and laptop and then after writing on my laptop I can USB-it to my P.C. and open it and then save as Word, with no format difficulties!  (I'm sorry if this should have been obvious, I've not hopped around computers like this!)  So that is an option -allbeit a rather long-winded one!

 

Installing Open Office (.exe) my laptop seems to treat it as a file to be opened ('Open with')  When I browse the options are there (Internet Explorer, Notepad, etc.)

When I double-click on my USB drive it still says 'Open with'

 

I'll try looking in the local disk+ program files (should really have tried this!)

 Many Thanks again!

Hopefully better news soon!

[wineinthepark]

Oh, I should have added that I downloaded Libre and it says 'file is corrupted'!

[RKinner]

Just means that the download didn't work right.  Try it again.

[wineinthepark]

Best Answer

WHOOO!

 

I've downloaded Libre (properly!) and copied across multiple files (in RTF and as Word) from my P.C. and it all works fine!

I've also then moved the Libre docs back onto my P.C. and opened as Word without problems!

Sorted!

 

Thank you so so much for your help - and patience!